Astrophotography with kit lenses?

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AndyG123

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Hi guys, I've got the d3300 camera with the 18-55 3.5/5.6 and the sigma 70-300 f4-5.6 macro lens.

Just wanting advice on best methods. I don't have any fancy tracking tripods. I've got a remote shutter and a standard tripod and these lenses...
What settings would you recommend as a base for firstly stars? And secondly the moon? I tried a moon shot just then and found a fast shutter speed was good however I struggled with focus on it, it seemed to be sharp on the edges, but not the center of the moon.. Do you manual focus, auto focus? Should macro be enabled?

Thanks guys.
 
AndyG123 said:
What settings would you recommend as a base for firstly stars?
Click to expand...
Aperture - Probably as wide as you can go.
Focal length - Probably as wide as you can go.
Focus - Manual using live view.
Shutter speed - Use the 500 rule, so probably 15-20 seconds max at the wide end of your kit lens.
ISO - Experiment to see how high you can go without noise becoming too bad.

AndyG123 said:
And secondly the moon? I tried a moon shot just then and found a fast shutter speed was good however I struggled with focus on it, it seemed to be sharp on the edges, but not the center of the moon.. Do you manual focus, auto focus?
Click to expand...
Remember the moon is brightly illuminated by the sun so you will need a fairly fast shutter speed. Spot meter off the moon and reduce the exposure by a stop or so. (Meters assume 18% reflectivity but the moon is more like 6%.) The moon should be bright enough and big enough to use auto focus.
 
Without a tracking mount you will only have a short time till the stars trail - how long depends on where in the sky you're pointing (higher up you'll get longer) and the magnification (the longer the focal length the shorter the time). It's just a case of experimenting to see what works for what you're trying to achieve. You'll need to up the iso to compensate for the lack of a wide aperture and only you know how well your camera copes with long exposure noise. What focal length were you trying for the Moon? Remember your autofocus needs contrast. When I shoot Sun or Moon with either a 300mm or 600mm lens I always spot focus on the edge rather than the centre. I'm long sighted and any sort of live view/manual focusing doesn't work for me. To complicate things there is a lot of wobbly atmosphere between you and your subject. Shoot a sequence of Sun or Moon, same focus, and some will be sharper than others. Bracket your exposures as it's not always possible to pick the best off the camera screen. Enabling macro? I don't own and have never used a macro lens so I would say no.
 
No Macro, unless I have something to learn (Possible)

Amongst the Astro thingies (not rules) there is a 600 thingie or similar. At 600mm you can only open the shutter for a second, 300mm 2 seconds, 150mm 4 seconds, get the drift................

On a fixed tripod, you can get some quite good shots if you up the ISO a bit, but to get good shots of stars and their constellations, you really need a fairly short lens, 50mm or so. And thus you are able to have quite long exposures (20 secs ). ref ISO try experimenting, nothing lost. A bit dependant on your camera, but you can easily go up to 6000 ISO, perhaps even double that.

As Jannyfox says, moon is so different to stars, to see detail you will need a long lens, 300mm+ exposures are 1/200 at f8 and iso 200. Tis a bright little moon...........

Factors like how high in the sky, Light pollution all play a part. Experiment ..................:-)
 
So last night before this post I tried a few shots, and got a blurry moon, about 5 out if focus stars and nothing more. So I called it a
Loss... This morning I ran my star shots through camera raw. And was amazed, the shot is still out if focus, but in camera raw once the exposure is bumped up there was literally hundreds of stars. I was amazed.
 
For 18mm I would probably stick to 20-22 seconds at max aperture and control the exposure on the ISO

If you're having trouble focusing then run a few experimental frames with the lens in manual focus. Start at infinity and move the focus ring a fraction one way and shoot again. Do this several times and see if the focus gets better or worse. My Samyang is way out at infinity and the focus ring needs to be set at 3 metres for sharp stars.

For the moon I focus using live view, manual exposure and then take 50-60 shots on continuous drive at max frame rate. Then stack them in some free software. Generally gives a better result than a single frame which, as has been pointed out can suffer from atmospheric conditions that aren't visible to the eye
 
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