One photo every day: I did cheat a bit with these stars. (250/365)

gamer00 (67) in onephotoeveryday • 7 years ago

Hello, I'm still here while it's a bit late.

I just finished a long run of editing...

Yeah, in @apsu's moon shot comments there was some discussion about compositing images together to make it look like the stars were visible behind the moon, so I decided to create something like that.

Moon and the stars

Camera body: Canon EOS 550D
Lens: EF 75-300mm ƒ/4-5.6
Focal length: 300mm
Aperture: ƒ/8
Exposure: 1/160 s
ISO: Dual-ISO 100+400

While the stars are quite real, they were so dim I had to lighten them up many times before they were visible, and still they looked pretty awful and small. I also had to get rid of much of the noise so there is a possibility many real stars disappeared and some noise ended up being stars.

I also had to composite two star images together to get more of those visible stars instead of distant dim galaxies and stuff, so this sky is completely not real. The stars are taken from two positions in the sky. I couldn't shoot the ones on the moon's path, because there was too much light pollution to the South of where I was. I had to shoot North and East to get visible stars.

While shooting East, I noticed something peculiar:

Look at the bright one and the smaller one below it.

Camera body: Canon EOS 550D
Lens: EF 75-300mm ƒ/4-5.6
Focal length: 110mm
Aperture: ƒ/8
Exposure: 2.5 s
ISO: Dual-ISO 400+800

Could it be those are Mars and Venus?

I zoomed, and got one of them but I could not focus, as it was just too far away, and the focusing on the 75-300mm lens is awful. But it does look like a planet.

Mars?

Camera body: Canon EOS 550D
Lens: EF 75-300mm ƒ/4-5.6
Focal length: 300mm
Aperture: ƒ/8
Exposure: 2.5 s
ISO: Dual-ISO 400+800

I'm not sure, but to the plain eye, and even before editing, the dot looked red to my eyes. I had to desaturate the stars somewhat because there were a lot of different coloured dots that looked like stars, noise or something that needed to be turned into whitish to fool the eye to think the stars in the moon shot were real(ish). I couldn't be bothered to make an unedited copy of the shot.

I'm starting to slow down as I'm getting more and more tired as it's closing 3am.

Anyway, here's the today's close-up of the moon:

Perfect!

It came out beautifully! Simply beautiful... Although I still think the lens could be a bit better. Am I wrong, or does it seem like it's not a full moon anymore but waning already?

See ya!

Public OPED Project Announcement:

One Photo Everyday is not just a challenge nor just a series of posts on Steemit but it’s our way of providing valuable pictures everyday to our amazing community in order to promote the storytelling through the lens of the cameras.

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[Previous post: One photo every day: Full moon (249/365)]

Previously in 365, One photo every day:

Cataloguing the plants #7, New chilies (243/365)
Moon (244/365)
Reflection (245/365)
Irony caught me in Kahvisaari (246/365)
Bilberry-lingonberry pie (247/365)
Kalevalanpäivä // Kalevala day :: Kantele (248/365)
Full moon (249/365)

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7 years ago by gamer00 (67)

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ariel998 (38) · 7 years ago

It is a very nice picture. How much does a camera like yours cost? To start what brand do you recommend ?.

$0.35

3 votes

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gamer00 (67) · 7 years ago (edited)

My camera? Well I guess you could get a camera like mine for anywhere from 50 € to 350 € used, cheaper if you are lucky.

My advice is that if you are really interested in photography, practice with what you've got and save money, until you've got enough. Then get yourself an affordable camera body with a good range of lenses available. (Doesn't really matter what brand it is as long as there is a good lens selection available.) You will often get a cheap kit lens with it, but it's also advisable to invest in a good 50 mm prime. You can find those from 50 € used to 150€ new.

If you want to shoot the moon on a budget, a Sigma 70-300mm seems to fare pretty nicely against a newer version of the Canon EF75-300 I have.

If you are serious about star photography I have no experienced answers as what to invest in, only guesses. I'm thinking of investing in a 150-600mm lens might be an option. What brand exactly I have no clue, but I guess the prices can vary from 1000€ to 3000€ depending on the quality of the glass.

And then there's this:

Canon EF 1200mm f/5.6L USM for just under 100 000 €

One can always dream, right?

Anyway, choose a good lens, not just any lens. Keep in mind that there are lenses for full-frame cameras and crop-sensor cameras, and while the full-frame lenses work with cropped cameras, the reverse often doesn't work and you will end up upgrading the lens if you ever upgrade the body.

As you learn to shoot photos, you'll come to the point where you may eventually want to upgrade the camera body. At that point you'll probably already know which way you want to go and invest in a camera that suits your needs as a photographer. And the lenses you've already acquired will likely work with the camera body you choose. If you go from a crop sensor camera to a full-frame, you might have to upgrade some of those crop sensor lenses too though.