fuji finepix s1500 and the milky way

[TazG]

hey all,

it's a really dark night tonight with no clouds and the sky is just lovely. i'm looking to capture a picture of the milky way, but the only problem is i don't have a clue how to. i've got a finepix s1500 and every photo i take is pretty much black. (i haven't been able to get them on the computer yet, can't find usb)

if anyone else has this camera, just wondering what the optimal settings are for taking pics of the milky way.

thanks

[ronin]

Not sure is the answer.

CAmera has a "manual" mode but not sure how manual it really is.

The instructions say select M and set the shutter and aperture to the desired.

Sp you would set Aperture to the widest then back off a stop (just improves the general sharpness), and set the Shutter to say 20 seconds.

The problem is I cannot make out if the camera then uses these values in it's internal algorithm and tries to what amounts to 2 crazy values into "normal" photography.

You will need to set the ISO to say 800 - the camera appears to allow this - and the lens will have to be manually focused - I see there is a focus lock but that may not be the same. If the autofocus cannot be disengaged then the camera will hunt and in effect never focus.

So seems that you can set ISO, and in effect force aperture and exposure length, the problem is I can read nothing enabling you to manually focus the lens, although they may have left it out of the pdf manual online. Hopefully there is a small switch on the lens marked "M".

The setting given are simply estimates, they allow you (I hope) to extend ISO to 1600, Aperture to 1 stop wider and exposure to 25 seconds so gathering a bit more light, but making one "bigger" means a bit more noise, bit less sharpness or a bit more trailing.

[TazG]

Not sure is the answer.

CAmera has a "manual" mode but not sure how manual it really is.

The instructions say select M and set the shutter and aperture to the desired.

Sp you would set Aperture to the widest then back off a stop (just improves the general sharpness), and set the Shutter to say 20 seconds.

The problem is I cannot make out if the camera then uses these values in it's internal algorithm and tries to what amounts to 2 crazy values into "normal" photography.

You will need to set the ISO to say 800 - the camera appears to allow this - and the lens will have to be manually focused - I see there is a focus lock but that may not be the same. If the autofocus cannot be disengaged then the camera will hunt and in effect never focus.

So seems that you can set ISO, and in effect force aperture and exposure length, the problem is I can read nothing enabling you to manually focus the lens, although they may have left it out of the pdf manual online. Hopefully there is a small switch on the lens marked "M".

The setting given are simply estimates, they allow you (I hope) to extend ISO to 1600, Aperture to 1 stop wider and exposure to 25 seconds so gathering a bit more light, but making one "bigger" means a bit more noise, bit less sharpness or a bit more trailing.

as far as i can tell, the max shutter speed is 8" (which i think means seconds?). i was going to take some photos last night but by the time i researched what effect apertures, shutters and iso values have on images it was very cloudy out. iso < 1600 are 10 mega pixels and the camera goes all the way up to 6200 i believe, but the quality is reduced to 3.2mp ?? not really sure how important MP is for shooting stuff like the milky way, but once i get a clear night i'll try it all and see which gets the best results.

i can't find any way to turn off the autofocus unfortunately, the few photos i did take (which were not of stars, but rather lights in the distance) turned out quite blurry from the camera's screen. not sure how they look on the computer.

hoping for dark skies tonight. thanks, your post was very helpful