Astrophotography
This blog will be a lot shorter than some of my recent blogs. But I thought you may be interested in some astrophotography (photography of the stars). I have not done very much star photography, and I am very much a beginner in this area.
[Just a word of caution, this blog goes heavy with photography-related ‘techno-babble’, measurements, and jargon. If reading this is not your cup-of-tea, best to just look at my amazing photographs and go ‘ooh ah, oooh ahh’!]
On the way home from the European Southern Observatory. We stopped in a patch of empty desert (near to the ‘Hand of the Desert’) and waited for sunset. For the next hour, I tried my hand at amateur astrophotography.
I love taking photos, and I know that a phone camera is pretty good. But I also enjoy taking photos with a proper camera, because I enjoy playing around with the settings and I love the way a real camera feels while taking photos. I did not really know what I was doing (regarding astrophotography) so I searched online and found this website that really helped: https://www.shutterhow.com/astrophotography-with-canon-m50/
Here are some of my photos.
On this world trip, I have a Canon M50 Mark II that I enjoy taking on our adventures. I have two lenses that go with this camera. The 22 mm f/2 pancake lens, and the kit lens; the 15-45 mm f/3.5 to f/5.6.
Long-story short, I used the 22 mm pancake lens because it has a lower f-stop (aperture), which means a larger opening so that more light can get to the sensor. So better low-light performance. I forgot to mention that 22 mm on the Canon M50 is the equivalent to the typical 35 mm lens on a full-frame camera, because the M50 has a smaller sensor.
To take these photos, I had maximum aperture, which is f2 for this specific lens. I tried to follow the ‘500 rule’ to get my maximum shutter speed. Before I explain how it works, I wanted to explain why I tried to follow the 500 rule. It is a guideline to minimize star trails. How you work it out is:
You'll need to multiply your focal length by the ‘crop factor’ to get the full-frame equivalent focal length before applying the 500 rule.
22 mm x 1.6 = 35 mm
My camera has an APS-C sensor, which means it has a crop factor of 1.6x.
500÷35mm=14sec
So, when I use the 500 rule on this lens for astrophotography, I should not shoot an exposure for over 14 seconds if I don’t want star trails visible in my image.
In some of these photos, I shot it at 30 seconds exposure (just as an experiment) and you can see a little bit of star trails.
This is the last blog in my series from the Atacama. I hope you have enjoyed riding with me on our journey through this incredible desert landscape. In the next blog, my family and I visit the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos (the Museum of Memory and Human Rights) in Santiago, a truly eye-opening memorial to the victims of the dictatorship. I hope you will join me on this next experience.
