Astrophotography Q&A

[@thomasfinley4199]

Solid advice from you and you are turning out some good tutorials. Am now a subscriber!

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

I can't believe the support this video has gotten, wow! I posted it over four years ago as only the second video on my channel. Well, I suck at self promotion, but I thought it would be a good idea to mention here that I just published a Patreon page if you enjoyed this video. All of my current projects are there, including my composition ebook and the online workshops that I'm hosting. patreon.com/PhotographyLifeBlog

[@lynxlynx5456]

Hi, thank you for your amazing videos and tutorials. I have some questions. 1. What dslr would you recommend me if I want to take photos of diverse objects (Milky Way, deep-sky objects, birds, close up). I would like to gain kit lens, telephoto lens and some wide-angle for landscape astrophotography. My budget for body is 400-500 Euro. 2. How to shoot frames for stacking? Is it neccessary to re-center Orion Nebula to the center of frame after few shots? I mean, when nebula is moving slowly from the left edge of the frame to the right edge. Is Sequator able to stack frames where nebula is in differnet positions in single frames?

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

I'm personally a fan of the Nikon D5600 at that point. It's got a very good autofocus system (good for birds and close-up) and a sensor with large dynamic range and good high ISO performance (good for deep sky and Milky Way). But basically any camera with an aps-c sensor or larger would work well for your intended subjects, so long as it was made within the last 8 years or so. There's less difference than most people assume, even between different brands. For deep sky stacking, you really should use an automated tracking head, which will keep the nebula in the center of the frame for every shot. Otherwise, you'd need to crop the photos at least roughly before importing them into your stacking software, so that the stars are relatively well aligned beforehand. You may have better luck with DeepSkyStacker rather than Sequator if there's no foreground - Sequator can still work, but it's best for cases when there's a foreground landscape in addition to the stars.

[@allison_lafitte]

Is wide angle more important than wide aperture? I have a 35mm 1.8 for my Nikon D5600. I was thinking that may work better then the 18-55 kit lens I have...I'm still debating if I want to bite the bullet on a wide angle.

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

Generally, aperture is the more important factor, but focal length is still a big one! At 35mm on a crop sensor DSLR, you can't use a very long exposure, or the stars will be blurry. My recommendation is to try shooting the Milky Way with the 18-55mm lens, in combination with Starry Landscape Stacker (Mac) or Sequator (Windows) and the image averaging technique that I talk about in the Milky Way tutorial I recently posted. If you want to get good single images, neither the 18-55 nor the 35 are really optimized for Milky Way shots, but you can get excellent images through averaging techniques, without paying a ton for a wide angle. Hope this helps!

[@markjarrett9400]

Looking forward to watching this when i have more time

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

Thank you, Mark!

[@SheherbanoAli]

Hi, just saw some of your videos, really liked them...missed your live stream though. I took some pictures of Great Conjunction but, unfortunately they didn't turn out very well. I took them with point and shoot. I have recently bought my first DSLR, but really not sure what camera setting I should use for night sky. Need a little help. Regards!

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

If you haven’t watched my course on Milky Way photography, I think you’ll find it answers your main questions! Otherwise, let me know if you have any questions left: kzbin.info/www/bejne/f6ulmop5hbGqaqM