The moon is also a great subject to start you out in astrophotography. The full moon is generally large enough to shoot with a normal zoom or telephoto lens, but you still need the right equipment and planning to ensure the best moon pictures.

The right equipment

The most important will be a tripod to keep the camera steady. You don’t want a blurry, bright blob of a moon. Try a zoom lens of at least 300mm for moon photos as you can get pretty close. A shutter release cable is ideal to reduce shake when touching your camera, but if you don’t have one, use the self-timer.

Find the right moon phase

The internet is your friend as you would most likely want to shoot the full moon. Find a chart online to show you not only the moon phases, but also the time the moon rises and sets. In general, it is best to shoot the moon on a cloudless night, but there are exceptions, depending on your objectives with your moon pictures.

It is not always necessary to choose a clear night. In this image, I chose to shoot the moon in cloudy conditions as it added something interesting to the scene.

Camera settings

Remember that the full moon is bright because of the sun reflecting on it, so you can’t use long exposures. Some basic settings to use as reference for shooting the moon is a low ISO, fast shutter speed (try 1/125sec or 1/250sec) and an f-stop of f11 or f9. These settings don’t guarantee the best moon photos, but is a good starting point to work from. Play around until you find the setting that works best for you.

Composition

If you shoot the moon up close filling the entire frame, you can get amazing results with a lot of details, especially on the moon’s surface. Make your moon pictures different from the others out there. Find diff angles to make your moon images stand out from the rest out there. Often, a couple of clouds can add interesting elements to your shots. Try silhouettes, cityscapes, trees and even reflections of the moon in water.

Be creative and have fun taking moon pictures

By just playing around with your camera and creating some magic with post processing software, you can overlay images, or add the moon into night photography shots. You don’t always have to opt for the same close up shots of the moon. Create sequences with the next solar eclipse to showcase your skills.

Find out when the next full moon is and try your hand at astrophotography. However, there is no need to wait for the next full moon as you can shoot all the different phases of the moon.

Remember, sharing is caring. Don’t keep your moon pictures for yourself or lose them amongst all the files on your computer. Photo sharing sites not only allow you to showcase your amazing moon images, but it will also be kept safe, in its original size and format!

No need to only focus on the full moon only. Try and shoot other phases of the moon too.

Solar eclipses or the blood moon is great to shoot. If you have the time or energy to stay awake the entire night, you can shoot every moon phase and add them in sequence afterwards, creating some interesting moon pictures.

There is no need to only shoot the moon at night. It can also add something to your daylight photos.

In this scene I exposed the image for longer to get the scenery visible. In this case, one can shoot the moon with the correct exposure and overlay the two with post-processing software.

The post Simple photography tips to take better moon pictures appeared first on SlickPic Digital Photography School.

Something to keep in mind for photographing stars and a meteor shower is that it’s much more like shooting a time-lapse versus still photos. There is no telling when exactly meteors will blaze across the sky, and in order to catch them, you’ll need to be prepared to take as many photos as you can with a wide angle lens. If your camera stays in the same spot, the resulting images can be use for a brief time-lapse clip in addition to your still photographs.

Here are a few morsels of instruction on capturing meteor showers:

1. Find dark skies away from the brightness of the city. This nifty website: http://www.jshine.net/astronomy/dark_sky/ -is great as a general guide to find a place for night sky photography or try this one: http://www.cleardarksky.com/csk/
   
2. Set up as quickly as possible because the more time you have with your shutter open, the greater the likelihood of capturing a meteor.
3. Make sure you have a sturdy tripod to get crisp images of meteors streaking across the sky.
4. Use a fast, wide-angle lens. This is the single most important facet in your meteor photography rig. With a wider field of view, you can capture that much more sky, and more meteors per hour. Remember that as you go wider, you also lose resolution as more sky is placed into the same number of pixels, thus making each object smaller. While being able to capture the entire sky is ideal, a smaller field of view will produce a better quality photo. Also crucial is speed. A faster lens will allow you to capture fainter meteors. For best results, use something in the < f/2.0 range that’s at least f/2.8 and ideally f/1.4. You don’t want to see a meteor fly through your field of view and check your camera later to see that it wasn’t imaged. There is no best camera for night sky photography, but a Nikon D800 handles a high ISO and noise induced from night photography seamlessly.
5. Use a wired cable release—just a cord with a locking shutter release button. Your camera should be set to the widest aperture the lens allows and the highest ISO you’re comfortable shooting with and an exposure that yields the best outcome for the light, location, and phase of the moon. A solid place to start is f/2.8, ISO 2000 and 15-25 seconds. If you’re using an f/1.4 lens, even better as you’ll be able to shoot with a lower ISO and have a less noisy image. Once you’re set on your exposure, put your camera on continuous drive mode so it will take photos until you release, and lock the button down on the cable release.
6. Make sure you have ample power supply with either a direct DC power connection to an external battery pack or a battery grip on your camera with dual batteries. The goal is to shoot all night with few or no breaks at all. The best meteors are usually just prior to sunrise, so make sure you’re taking photos all night. Most batteries give you around 2 hours of continuous shooting, which is fine in a pinch if you need to quickly swap.
7. Have a large capacity and fast memory card. You want a card that has a fast enough write speed and that can hold an entire night’s worth of shooting so your camera can empty the cache and shoot continuously without having to pause. In the duration of time it takes to stop to change cards, you can miss a massive meteor. A 64G compact flash card should be able to get you through the majority of the night.
8. One of the most essential steps is focusing. To image a night’s sky, you’ll need to focus to infinity, which can be a little complicated in the dark. The best is to pre-focus your lens when you still have sunlight. Then tape your focus ring with gaffer or duct tape so it stays in place while you’re setting up shots or moving around. Another option is to focus on the moon or bright star, or use your camera’s live-view function. Achieving accurate infinity focus is vital, and it’s best to quickly check your initial images on your laptop before committing.
9. Keep condensation off your lens. If you want to shoot all night long, you’ll need to fend off dew in the summer and frost in the winter that can fog out your lens in just the first hour. The most effective tool in this case is an astronomy dew heater for a telescope. Most are just a Velcro strap that you can wrap around your lens with a heated wire that runs through it to prevent condensation.
10. Finally, consider your composition. You can have all the right tools, but still need to frame a compelling shot. Select a foreground element such as mountains, rock formations or a grouping of trees to anchor the photo so it’s not just a shot of meteors and stars, but still maintains as much sky as possible. Positioning also makes a major impact. Pointing your camera slightly away from the radiant point of the shower produces longer meteors, as they’re not coming directly towards the camera.

Ready for some night sky photography? There are a number of sites where you can find upcoming meteor showers including space.com and earthsky.org. Make sure to check the weather as well and the moon phases so that you can be prepared.

The post 10 Tips For Meteor Showers and Night Sky Photography appeared first on SlickPic Digital Photography School.

First of all, it is a kind of photography technique wherein it involves a certain amount of time for the shutter to open in order to capture an element. It is often, if not always used in landscape photography and night photography as these genres mostly requires longer exposure times compared to other genres. With this technique, you will be able to capture light streaks, running clouds, create a wonderful sunset shoot together with the use of ND filter or even make running water look milky. These types of accents provide attractive elements that can make the composition of your photo.

In order to capture a great photo using the long exposure technique, there are essential items that need to be noted. Here are some photography tips in order to make a great long exposure photo:

1. Use a sturdy tripod

Using the technique captures a unique element in photography, and that is time. It literally means the technique captures time and everything that moves on the composition will be captured. If you will not use a tripod when capturing photos in long exposure, you will end up blurring everything, including the ones that you are not intending to blur and an ND filter will not put up with it. This is essential especially when you perform landscape photography or night photography.  Any type of unwanted movements on the camera while the shutter is open (or you are performing long exposure) will ruin your photo. So, as one of the important photography tips is to purchase a tripod that can fully handle your camera and make it sure to be steady. Use a tripod to achieve this cloud streak while maintaining the sharpness of other areas of composition during long exposure.

2. Use a remote shutter for long exposure

Taking from the notion of making the camera steady and sturdy during long exposure, using a remote shutter is very important.  The long exposure technique frequently uses the bulb setting of your camera. It allows to stop exposure at any time you need, and as long as you want. This is important because it can capture the right streak of light in night photography, the correct range of clouds, as well as the right mist of running water using and ND filter.

Use a remote shutter to minimize touching your camera during performing the technique

3. One of the cool photography tips to capture light trails – wait for the right moment

Capturing light trails is a fun trick to do using this technique particularly in night photography. A nice way is to set up a sturdy tripod onto your camera and place yourself on a strategic location. Then you can capture moving lights in different colors and take in the right blend of them through your composition. There is no set amount of time in capturing these trails. It’s mostly done through experimentation which makes it more challenging and fun when using the technique in capturing light trails.

Place yourself on a strategic location where you can capture light trails in multiple colors

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1. Use the right accessories

In order to capture good night photos, long exposure is needed, and this method requires steady camera for a certain period of time in order to capture as much light needed. To make the camera steady, the use of tripod in night photography is a requirement. To add to the steadiness of the camera, you can use a remote shutter to avoid touching the camera while it is in use. Also, the best city images can be captured using a wide angle lens, so make sure to have this to have more coverage and create a composition that you want.

2. Look for a good composition and take it from there

Cityscape photography has a lot of things to offer in terms of composition. With the array of buildings lit at night or just about the blue hour starts, it is a delight for the eyes to see and record them through good night pictures. Roam around the cityscapes first on just about the golden hour starts to check the lightings and positioning. This way, you can find a good composition just in time to capture city images at night.

3. Additional light sources

Night photography requires light in the darkness, but not a lot of it. Putting much light at night will not make good night pictures but rather make it bland and too normal. Look for additional light sources to add drama to your city images – may it be from the rays from the golden blue hour or a light post.

4. Capture light trails for added drama on the composition

Shooting in long exposure mode at night gives out a chance to play with colors of light. Moving lights such as in a car’s headlight is a good additional enhancement to your composition. This is one of the good things in night photography in which you can play around to find the best composition for you.

5. Obtain a Starburst effect on non-moving lights

The long exposure method captures much light as it can with reference to the time the camera shutter is open. To add more drama to the cityscapes, use f/16 setting to have a starburst effect particularly on non-moving lights. This wills surely enhance your already good night photos that are worthy to be used for Christmas photos.

6. Shoot in RAW format as much as possible

Night photography has a number of drawbacks specially when capturing city images. A glare from a light post can ruin your supposedly good night photos requiring it to be removed during post processing. Shooting in RAW mode is essential in order to fully maximize your editing capabilities during post processing.

These are just some of the photography tips that must be followed in indulging in night photography. After all, there is more to it than shooting in long exposure method.

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