How to Photograph the Stars

Stars in Campotosto Lake © Photo by Elisa Bistocchi

Today I’m going to focus on something a bit more advanced, photographing the star filled sky, also known as astrophotography.

For astrophotography you will be delving a bit deeper into the use of some of the manual controls of your camera like shutter speed, aperture, and ISO control. I also highly recommend shooting in RAW for night photography, as it will allow more control when editing the final image.

If you’re not sure what RAW is and why it is important I wrote a bit about RAW photography here.

Let’s Start With What You’ll Need

• Tripod – We’re going to be dealing with exposures in the tens of seconds and I don’t care who you are, you’re going to need something to stabilize your camera.
• A Camera With Manual Controls – Manual control of your ISO and shutter speed are going to be essential for photographing the stars.
• A Wide Aperture Lens – You’ll need a lot of light and f/2.8 seems to be the butter zone for astrophotography. Combine this with an ultra-wide lens and depth of field won’t be a problem.

Light pollution is a serious problem for astrophotography and if you’re anywhere near a large city you’re going to have to travel at least an hour to get away from the lights.

When photographing these tiny pinholes of light you will need as much light to hit your sensor as possible. Therefore it’s important to use combination of high ISO, wide apertures, and long shutter speeds.

As far as exposure time goes, it’s better to keep it as short as possible, otherwise you’ll end up with movement in your stars as the Earth rotates. As an example, my kayak photograph was shot at 30 seconds, which was actually a bit long and if you look closely you can see some movement in the stars.

My photos made with Canon EOS 60D + Sigma 10-20 mm in the Campotosto Lake, Abruzzo. (Elisa Bistocchi Photographer).

Stars © Photo by Elisa Bistocchi

Sky in Campotosto © Photo by Elisa Bistocchi