Please help me! How do I take photos of the stars?? I have a Canon 1200D, your photography is amazing xxxx
I’m so sorry this has taken me decades to answer – life has been chaotic! Thank you so much for your love and your message! I really appreciate your kindness.
Before I rush into my lengthy nonsense, you might wish to read these notes on the exposure triangle. (I apologise for wasting your time if you already know this stuff, but it’s better than me going on about settings when you have no clue what I’m talking about!)
Unlike with moon shots, the aim of shooting the stars is to capture as much light as possible without including too much noise (though the noise issue can often be corrected in editing). You also don’t need a long zoom lens for the stars.
You do however need to be somewhere away from light pollution because there’s a big difference to what you can shoot depending on where you are. For instance, this photo is one I took from my bedroom window. This one is from a 5 minute drive deeper into the countryside. You should consider environmental factors and astronomical events when choosing your location.
As for settings, you need to use a high ISO, slow shutter speed, and wide aperture to allow the most light into your exposure. I usually settle with ISO 6400, then try the shutter speed between 1/5th of a second to 5 seconds, and the aperture between f/6.3 to f/4.2 or smaller. For the record, I use a Nikon D5500, but I believe DSLR’s operate the same in terms of these settings.
Hopefully, this answers your question. If not, Pascal takes awesome star shots and has been a great help to me — his advice would probably make better sense than mine!
– Abi <3
