LRTimelapse Forum

Hi, Could someone recommend a shutter speed and interval between exposures for shooting the night sky? I'm looking for an seamless movement of stars across the night sky. I tried my first timelapse last Monday and used 10 seconds with a 5 second interval between shots, wide open (f2.8). This looks pretty good but I am presently working on the post work and won't be able to critique it until I get a handle on that.

Starting out in Timelapse is like being at the base of Mount Everest without any shoes, it's gonna be a challenge! :-)

Brian that sounds good for the beginning. Check out the results and fine tune next time... Ideal exposure time depends on the focal length when shooting stars... The wide the angel, the longer you can expose.
Time lapse shooting is always a little bit of trial and error

(2011-04-29, 13:50)Brian Carey Wrote: [ -> ]Hi, Could someone recommend a shutter speed and interval between exposures for shooting the night sky? I'm looking for an seamless movement of stars across the night sky. I tried my first timelapse last Monday and used 10 seconds with a 5 second interval between shots, wide open (f2.8). This looks pretty good but I am presently working on the post work and won't be able to critique it until I get a handle on that.

This depends on two things: Which lens you use and what ISO you can use without too much noise. The shorter the lens is, the longer you can expose without getting star trails. For 20mm this is around 20-25sec, with 14-16mm you can easily go up to 30sec without problems. Choosing high ISO (3200 or higher) can help very much to see small stars and structures in the sky.
I would be interested to see your video.

best regards

Christian

Thanks Günther, thanks Chris!

@Chris. I have posted a link to the video. This is my first attempt and I did use LRTimelapse. The slide duration in LR is 0.2 seconds with fades,set at 0.0. I think next time I will try a slide duration of 0.1 seconds. This is a basic rendering with no other edits, it is as far as I am in the learning process at the moment.

I think I should set up the location. This is taken at Cape Spear Newfoundland, the most easterly point in Canada. At Cape Spear there are actually 2 lighthouses. The one used in the video is used for tourism these days and the operational one is behind me lighting the scene, hence the sweeping light the green tint to the landscape.

If anyone has any suggestions on this I would love to hear them.

This is a shot with both lighthouses,


Password: cape


I used a Canon 5D MkII with a 24-70 L lens, at f2.8, shutter speed of 10 seconds with a 5 second duration between exposures.

Thanks!

Hi Brian,

(2011-04-30, 00:27)Brian Carey Wrote: [ -> ]@Chris. I have posted a link to the video. This is my first attempt and I did use LRTimelapse. The slide duration in LR is 0.2 seconds with fades,set at 0.0. I think next time I will try a slide duration of 0.1 seconds. This is a basic rendering with no other edits, it is as far as I am in the learning process at the moment.

Thanks, this shows very good, what you have done. Nice place btw.
What I recognised first ist the flickering of the exposures due to the different amounts of light coming in from the operational lighthouse. In some photos you take a complete lighting period, in others only a part and in some nothing of the light from the lighthouse. So you get pretty different light situations for the landscape. Can you time your camera in a way that it always takes the same light situation? What I mean is if this lighthouse turns on the light for 10sec and then has a pause for 10 sec always shoot in the complete light time (or dark time, what suits better) so you eliminate the different light situations for the landscape.

(2011-04-30, 00:27)Brian Carey Wrote: [ -> ]is behind me lighting the scene, hence the sweeping light the green tint to the landscape.

The other possibility is to move close to the operational lighthouse, exclude most of the landscape and show more sky. If you expose in a way that the sky shows stars, then the light from the lighthouse will blow out, but this must not neccessarily look bad in my opinion.

(2011-04-30, 00:27)Brian Carey Wrote: [ -> ]I used a Canon 5D MkII with a 24-70 L lens, at f2.8, shutter speed of 10 seconds with a 5 second duration between exposures.

Which ISO did you use? The 5D MKII is capable of high ISO shots, which is really an advantage for this kind of photography.

best regards

Christian

Hi Chris thanks for the suggestions. I shot iso1600 this time. I have shot higher iso's with the 5D2, this is one I shot last year at iso3200,

Journey to Jupiter


I'm going over Gunther's workflow video and will take another crack at the post work. Thanks again!

I followed Gunthers video and did a re-edit. At least I used the 16x9 aspect ratio and templates he used in the video. I also darkened the exposure of the first image and lightened the last image in LR. I don't know what to do with the deflicker at this time, I tried exposure affect = 9.9 and avg smoothing = 3.

I can understand what they mean when people say you have to experiment. Here's the video......

Password: cape

Hi Brian,
the Jupiter image is great. If it is darker, you can easily see the milky way.

(2011-04-30, 13:00)Brian Carey Wrote: [ -> ]lightened the last image in LR. I don't know what to do with the deflicker at this time, I tried exposure affect = 9.9 and avg smoothing = 3.

You could try to use the lighthouse as the reference for the deflickering. This could help.

(2011-04-30, 13:00)Brian Carey Wrote: [ -> ]I can understand what they mean when people say you have to experiment.

Its a lot of try and error.

any chance for nice star shots with a nikon D80? at ISO 400-500 I feel already close to the max regarding noise.
I got some wide open Lenses though from 11-16mm 2.8 50mm 1.4 and 17-50 + 80- 200 mm 2.8

Why not? Lightroom does a fairly good job regarding noise-reduction.