44
votes
Accepted
What are the reasons for not taking super long exposures (hours) in astrophotography?
@Michael Clark and @Itai have provided good answers. A few more thoughts from the perspective of the enthusiastic amateur:
Tracking technology isn't perfect and sometimes its better to work within ...
- 536
34
votes
Accepted
Why in a photo light lines of street lamps? How to remove them?
It looks like there are parallel light trails below each streelamp -- going down, then right, then down some more (ASCII art):
/
|
|
|
\_
\
|
And ...
- 3,772
32
votes
Accepted
Why is it that when the green channel clips, it turns into blue?
The light you describe as "green" also contains components of "red" and "blue" light. They are much weaker than the green component, but they are there.
Once the exposure is bright enough for the ...
- 174k
27
votes
Accepted
How can I take a photo of a dark bar with a bright sign?
You could've probably got a decent result just by picking an intermediate exposure.
Alternatively, you can try to take a short and a long exposure of the same scene, and combine them digitally ...
- 4,583
19
votes
What are the reasons for not taking super long exposures (hours) in astrophotography?
It is firstly because we can now.
Bulb photography can indeed shoot exposures of minutes to several hours, depending on the camera. Using a film camera, astrophotography is done with very long ...
- 102k
19
votes
What are the reasons for not taking super long exposures (hours) in astrophotography?
The main advantage of stacking is to average out the randomized Poisson distribution "shot noise" that can be a problem in low light images such as astrophotography. Another advantage for stacking ...
- 174k
16
votes
What settings for Dirt track night time pictures
I see two main problems:
Too slow shutter speed.
Overexposure.
The first goes directly to the issue you ask about. You are stuck with whatever lighting there is, so you can only trade off ISO, ...
- 17.4k
12
votes
Accepted
What are the features needed in a DSLR for astrophotography?
I already have a Nikon D5200 and I I tried so much to get a clear view of the sky and it didn't work so much.
The camera you have is a fine one to start with. You should spend some time working on ...
- 31.6k
11
votes
Are there add-on lens accessories which collect additional light, as a parabolic microphone can be used to gather more sound?
There's already something that has been invented to collect light for photographs. We call them lenses. In order to collect more light, the front element of the lens must be larger for the same focal ...
- 174k
10
votes
Accepted
How do you take a picture without focusing?
Your question boils down to auto vs manual focus. From the methodology you've described, it seems that you are attempting to use autofocus to get a picture of the night sky. That's not a great plan ...
- 774
10
votes
What are these disks in my photo taken with the Tamron 10-24 lens?
They're internal reflections of a bright light source inside the lens; from their position and the lighting on the trees, I'm going to guess there was some street lighting somewhere just out of the ...
- 21.5k
9
votes
How can I take a photo of a dark bar with a bright sign?
The dynamic range of cameras is limited and is unable to capture large brightness differences within one shot.
For static subjects use Exposure Blending or HDR preferably on a tripod or similar stable ...
- 1,306
9
votes
Why in a photo light lines of street lamps? How to remove them?
How annoying :-) - I finished marking up a photo and now see that Chris H has done much the same but better. So I'll post this 'for completeness' but with less comment than I otherwise would have.
I ...
- 19.6k
9
votes
Accepted
switched to RAW and seeing ugly light bands in Lightroom
The first thing you must realize is that what you are seeing on your monitor is not "the" raw file. What you are seeing is an 8-bit demosaiced preview conversion of the raw file created by ...
- 174k
9
votes
What are the reasons for not taking super long exposures (hours) in astrophotography?
Digital sensors heat up over long exposures; I've had exposures as short as 6 minutes exhibiting very visible colour distortion in the corners of the frame. Run the chip continually for hours without ...
- 624
8
votes
How can I tell if something in a photograph is a star or a planet?
Are those other planets or other stars? Or is that a lens effect?
Looks to me like a planet and some moons. I don't know where you are, but Jupiter has been very bright in the night sky lately in my ...
- 31.6k
8
votes
Accepted
How do I find the right whitebalance for a night cityscape?
You're not going to get "color accurate" white balance at night. There's no way to make every object in the scene look the same color it would be if viewed under full spectrum daylight. This is ...
- 174k
7
votes
Accepted
How do the stars in this photo appear without star trails even at a long shutter speed?
A little late to the party here, but as the photographer in question I thought I'd weigh in. It's a single exposure. I used an external speedlite flash to "paint" the tree - with several ...
- 86
7
votes
Accepted
Does shooting at high ISO have a practical impact on battery life compared to exposure time?
SImple answer: not to a measurable extent.
Difficult answer: A high ISO-equivalent setting cranks the analog gain up. More gain requires more power per electron (or milliVolt if you prefer), but ...
- 1,887
7
votes
Why in a photo light lines of street lamps? How to remove them?
Although the poster hasn't specified it, this answer assumes this picture was shot on a tripod (it looks too sharp to be hand-held, even holding the camera steady against the window).
Many claimed ...
- 180
7
votes
Accepted
How would one get a moon shot like this?
The "shadow" area of the Moon is lit by Earthshine - light reflected towards the moon from the sunlit part of the Earth. From the Moon's point of view, the more of the earth that's sunlit, the ...
- 3,003
7
votes
Why is it that when the green channel clips, it turns into blue?
Why is it that when the green channel clips, it turns into blue?
Actually, it turns towards magenta. Look more closely at your picture.
When green clips and the other two channels (red, blue) don't,...
- 17.4k
7
votes
Accepted
Are there add-on lens accessories which collect additional light, as a parabolic microphone can be used to gather more sound?
As you edited your question it gives me more room. The same as a parabolic mic, any mirror lens do the exact same thing. It takes parallel rays coming from a distance, and focus them on a smaller spot....
- 23.1k
7
votes
Accepted
Looking for advice for choosing a DSLR for landscape/night photography
Would it be better for me to jump ship to Nikon and start from there or should I continue with Canon and use the few lenses I already own?
You're putting the cart a bit before the horse.
It would be ...
- 174k
6
votes
Accepted
Why do I never see HDR done with nighttime photography when the moon is in the frame?
This is done but most photos do not advertise their technique. If you search for moonscape on Google you will see lots of examples, mixed with some other artwork.
The most common technique to include ...
- 102k
6
votes
How do I find the right whitebalance for a night cityscape?
Short answer:
Shoot raw (if the camera can do that) and find the best WB setting with your image software.
Reasons:
Good night photos have their atmosphere because of their strong colors, not ...
- 313
6
votes
Why in a photo light lines of street lamps? How to remove them?
If you consider the light trails of the headlights of a vehicle, in the foreground, that appear to pass through some parked cars - it seems likely that the camera was tilted vertically during the 32 ...
- 1,242
6
votes
Circular Pattern in Night Sky Image
That very much looks like a reflection of the lens on the protective glass to me... along with another reflection from something outside. It does not look like banding due to editing.
This is the kind ...
- 13.7k
5
votes
Accepted
How can I focus quickly outdoors in the dark?
Your camera needs more light to focus. There are a few ways to add light in your situation:
Use a lens with a wider maximum aperture. Remember that metering and AF are done with the lens wide open. ...
- 174k
5
votes
Accepted
How to take the night skies and meteor showers?
Think about it: The stars are the same brightness the entire 40-60 seconds of each exposure and stay over the same pixels on your sensor. The meteors last a few seconds and move over very many pixels ...
- 174k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible