Wanting to shoot stars (not just star trails)

[Rishi Cremz]

I live in a rural area, so we have wonderful starry skies. I would love to shoot them, but I only have a p&s. I'm interested in trying star trails sometime, but right now I just want to get pictures of the stars themselves. Do you have any tips for specific settings or anything that can help the stars come out in the photos? I tried shooting for a few minutes tonight, and I only managed to get faint pinpricks of starlight. Thanks for the help!

[Frank Hymus]

You will need a long exposure, 30 seconds or so. You will have to experiment, and so a tripod is probably essential as you need to be tilting upwards to the sky. Check your camera manual to set shutter speed priorities. Zoom out as far as optical zoom will take you. Don't tread over the zoom line into "digital" zoom or you will lose any clarity and sharpness you might be able to pick out, Focus should be easy with a P&S since it will tend to "focus to infinity" on almost every opportunity. Good luck and good shooting!

[Mike Gifford]

Rishi, adding to Frank's ( @frankhymus ) comments, set your ISO as low as the p&s will go, probably around 100. The long shutter opening is to allow for as much light to hit the sensor. Don't get the moon into the shot as this not look good. Moon shots are handled differently. If at 30 sec you see to much light, go for 10, 15 and 20 sec. Experiment. After you have that working, star trails is just stacking all the images together. Go here for more information: http://blog.starcircleacademy.com/2011/02/automated-stacking-of-star-trails-in-ps-cs5/ http://www.danheller.com/star-trails http://www.startrails.de/html/software.html

[Karen H]

Rishi, I'm going with some others this weekend for star photography, and I have been wondering if I can get star shots at all. I have a bridge camera, which is a step up from a PNS, but 8 seconds is the longest I can get.. So I am watching for all tips.

[Teresa (pocketmouse)]

I wouldn't do the exposure for much longer than 30 seconds, or else you'll get star movement (i.e. very short star trails!) that will just make the stars look blurry. That means that you may have to bump up your ISO and widen your aperture as far as you can to get more light.

Here's one I took at 30s, ISO 1600, f/3.5:

[John W. Cundiff]

Use a tripod. ISO 1600-3200. Shutter speed 20-30 seconds (experiment with this setting). Apeture f11-f16.

[Jake]

here is the best write up on the subject I have seen by @abirkill
https://docs.google.com/a/alexisbirkill.com/document/d/1l1nf4fmFAWddif-wgUrRQGWVviinr7fe9Y-7HRZ0cpQ/edit

About half way down it talks about what you are trying to accomplish.

[The Mysterious Mr Biscuit]

@pocketmouse Oof! I haven't seen a star field like that since I was in space overnighted at a hut in the Alps. Do you live somewhere out in the middle of nowhere?

[Rishi Cremz]

@frankhymus Thank you for the detailed tips; I'll be sure to try those out. @mikegifford Thanks for the suggestions!
@pocketmouse Thank you for stopping by and helping me out. Your shot is absolutely inspiring!
@soren Thanks for the link. Definitely worth some detailed reading later this evening.

I took a few shots last night and only happened to get this one decent one.

It is very simple, certainly nothing extraordinary, but I rather like it. This was with only a one-second exposure as I didn't know that I should put it longer. I think that with a longer exposure next time, I'll come up with a better image!

[Teresa (pocketmouse)]

@Cheesebiscuit Haha no, I was out in the country for a placement - and it was in the middle of nowhere!

[J A Byrdlip]

@rishi @frankhymus @mikegifford This may be more information then you wish to handle or calculate, but I think this is what I was looking for when I started trying star trail with a 600mm lens.
http://www.astropix.com/GADC/SAMPLE7/SAMPLE7.HTM