How To Set Your Camera To Take Pictures Of Stars

When your aperture and iso are at their sweet spots you ll want to employ your remote shutter release and set your shutter speed to at least 30 45 minutes.

How to set your camera to take pictures of stars. How to take pictures of stars camera settings for taking pictures of the stars. Photographing stars can be very difficult to master due to long exposure times and the limitations of some digital cameras. Set the camera to manual and adjust the focal length to infinity. Focus the lens in manual mode during the day on a far away object setting the lens at infinity and making sure that is the best setting for the focus.

If it appears out of focus adjust accordingly. These settings are usually set with controls on the top or back of the camera but depending on the model or manufacturer may be set in menus. To capture star trails take test shots as if you were trying to correctly expose a still star shot. Dslr camera settings for astrophotography canon 20da controls and settings with backlight for viewing in the dark.

Do this and you ll capture the normally invisible continuous paths that stars take through the sky as glowing circles of light pretty stellar. If you camera is point and shoot just take the picture in automatic mode. This setting combined with the small aperture gives you a huge depth of field. Whether you use a point and shoot or dslr you should be able to adjust your exposure compensation rather easily.

To achieve a proper focus on the stars do not use autofocus. To photograph the stars in the sky as pinpoints of light start with as wide an f stop as your lens allows and shutter speed of about 20 seconds. Canales also goes over a couple different cameras and what you can expect of them. If you have manual control start with 1 6o second at f 8.

Verify that far off stars are in focus by snapping a test shot then review the shot by zooming in to the sky s brightest star on the lcd display. Setting your camera up to take photos of the stars is not too hard. Use the widest angle lens you can find. Make sure that all of your adjustment knobs are tight before leaving your camera on the tripod.

Increase the iso as needed for a good exposure. Dslr s can be heavy and you will be angling the head straight up in some cases. Set the lens to manual focus and the lens focus to infinity. Then at night just manually move the focus to that same spot and turn autofocus off.

Securely fasten your camera to your tripod via the removable mounting plate. Any more time than that and the stars will begin to blur. Leaving the camera s autofocus setting on which delivers out of focus star shots. Manually focus your lens to infinity then focus back a hair.

Attach a hood to your lens to prevent any ambient sidelight from washing out the image.