Image credit: Sam Wolfe
Every August, the night sky gets bombarded by the Perseid meteors, which are perfect for photographing (here's a NASA video explaining the phenomenon). But, before you point your camera upward, here are a few simple tips to make sure you get the most out of your night of shooting.
Find the darkest spot available
If you dwell in a big, bright city with a lot of lights, your chances of catching a worthwhile meteor image are going to be slim. You're going to be dealing with long-exposures and wide-open apertures, which means any environmental light will creep into the frame and overpower the image. If possible, get out into the country where streetlights and neon signs are few and far between. Just be sure to pack a flashlight for navigating your gear in the dark.
Stock up on coffee (or just sneak in a nap)
The best viewing time starts around midnight, but things will start getting more exciting as the night goes on. Shooters who can stay out until the early morning hours before sunrise will be rewarded with a more active show.
Bring a cable release
Everybody knows that a tripod is an absolute must for long exposures, but the value of a good cable release is often underestimated. Keeping your finger off of the camera's shutter button will help prevent blurred images, especially if your tripod's head isn't the sturdiest one around. If you don't want to buy a cable release, you can also use your camera's self-timer to keep your shutter finger from blurring your image.
Consider putting something in the foreground
If you fill the viewfinder with only sky, you're going to end up with a bunch of light streaks on the frame and not much else. Experiment with putting other things in the frame, even if they're dark (like mountains) and only create silhouettes. It will up the difficulty level, but will also probably result in more satisfying overall images. RAW capture will also help since it allows you to tweak your white balance later.
Use a wide, fast lens
Those bright little wonders won't be in front of the lens very long, so in order to make the most of each one, it's best to keep your aperture open wide. And because they'll appear so sporadically, having a wider lens will greatly increase the chance that you'll actually capture one (or more) over the course of the night.
While smaller apertures do make for longer exposures, the meteors themselves don't show up in the sky for long. You need to suck up as much light from them as possible while they're visible, which is why shooting wide open facilitates better results. You can always brighten things up in post, but that tends to accentuate noise, which you'll already have plenty of.
Don't forget to switch to manual focus mode and focus on infinity.
That way the camera does not try to autofocus in the dark. (It usually whirs back and forth frivolously)
There are DIY that show how to make a shutter release cord. Its only 3 wires and the right ones just need to be held together. (One is a ground)
Thanks! Im deffinatly going to try to do this tomorrow night. Hopefully if i do some good ones ill post it on my site at http://mtiffany.weebly.com . Also i noticed it said to use a cable. if you dont have a cable you can set your camera on a timer like 10 sec and it gets the vibration out before the shutter opens. This method works fine for me.
i have a few pics of the cable release i recently made for my canon t2i at my site above if it posts.
just in case it's www.flickr.com/photos/dyoung1167
the wiring diagrams are fairly easy to find on the web and you can make it out of anything you want even as big as a hoist pendulum if you like, but i like mine as there is a push-on push-off button added so i can set up my camera, hit the button, and let it snap away while i do whatever until whenever. leave a comment if you would like a little help.
I learned a few lessons the hard way this week.
The most important was - turn OFF your in-camera noise reduction for long exposures! On my Canon this setting made image processing time the same as the exposure, so a 30 second exposure took 30 seconds to process and write to the card. Three days later it occurred to me to turn that setting off, and processing times jumped down to one second! (the setting can be found in the "Custom Function" menu).
In the end my settings for a 10-22mm f3.5 lens were 10mm f 3.5 30 second exposures ISO 800 or 1600 depending on how dark I wanted the background, noise reduction OFF. Focus on infinity (which is anything beyond 2 meters with this lens), and turn autofocus turned off.
Don't forget to turn off vibration reduction/image stabilization, turn on mirror locking (to minimize shake) and use an opaque viewfinder in order to block the light coming from the back of the camera. A time lapse device is a must, because it frees up your hands. Also, you should get some company, because it gets really boring watching the sky for hours.
swifter fire
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While smaller apertures do make for longer exposures, the meteors themselves don't show up in the sky for long. You need to suck up as much light from them as possible while they're visible, which is why shooting wide open facilitates better results. You can always brighten things up in post, but that tends to accentuate noise, which you'll already have plenty of.
Don't forget to switch to manual focus mode and focus on infinity.
That way the camera does not try to autofocus in the dark. (It usually whirs back and forth frivolously)
There are DIY that show how to make a shutter release cord. Its only 3 wires and the right ones just need to be held together. (One is a ground)
Thanks! Im deffinatly going to try to do this tomorrow night. Hopefully if i do some good ones ill post it on my site at http://mtiffany.weebly.com . Also i noticed it said to use a cable. if you dont have a cable you can set your camera on a timer like 10 sec and it gets the vibration out before the shutter opens. This method works fine for me.
i have a few pics of the cable release i recently made for my canon t2i at my site above if it posts.
just in case it's www.flickr.com/photos/dyoung1167
the wiring diagrams are fairly easy to find on the web and you can make it out of anything you want even as big as a hoist pendulum if you like, but i like mine as there is a push-on push-off button added so i can set up my camera, hit the button, and let it snap away while i do whatever until whenever. leave a comment if you would like a little help.
I learned a few lessons the hard way this week.
The most important was - turn OFF your in-camera noise reduction for long exposures! On my Canon this setting made image processing time the same as the exposure, so a 30 second exposure took 30 seconds to process and write to the card. Three days later it occurred to me to turn that setting off, and processing times jumped down to one second! (the setting can be found in the "Custom Function" menu).
In the end my settings for a 10-22mm f3.5 lens were 10mm f 3.5 30 second exposures ISO 800 or 1600 depending on how dark I wanted the background, noise reduction OFF. Focus on infinity (which is anything beyond 2 meters with this lens), and turn autofocus turned off.
Don't forget to turn off vibration reduction/image stabilization, turn on mirror locking (to minimize shake) and use an opaque viewfinder in order to block the light coming from the back of the camera. A time lapse device is a must, because it frees up your hands. Also, you should get some company, because it gets really boring watching the sky for hours.
swifter fire