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Milkyway with crop sensor ?


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Quite simply is it possible or am I wasting my time trying? Friday was a fantastic night so I set up at a nice location and shot some photos which looked great in live view on the camera but we're disappointingly dark on the PC. Shot in RAW but I could not replicate the live view images on my PC. My camera has an APSC sensor, is this too small to capture enough light for clear image of the milky way?. Exposure length was 15 seconds to avoid blur with F2.8 and I SO tried at 800 , 1000, 1600 all hopeless results. All advice appreciated

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24 minutes ago, asset189 said:

is this too small to capture enough light for clear image of the milky way?

Any size sensor will do. The best trick is to take many RAW exposures and stack them. Post a -link to- a raw image and tell us what camera you have.

HTH

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The APS-C sensor isn't the problem. I use a DSLR for all my pictures with an APS-C sensor. If you're trying to capture a large swath of the Milky Way you first need the right type of lens. You need one with as short a focal length as possible, a low f/ratio, and a super-wide angle. You tell us you're shooting at f/2.8, but don't tell us what lens you're using. If you're planning on using single frames rather than stacking, you'll also probably need to shoot at a much higher ISO, think 3200+, before you see much detail in the Milky Way.

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6 minutes ago, Buzzard75 said:

The APS-C sensor isn't the problem. I use a DSLR for all my pictures with an APS-C sensor. If you're trying to capture a large swath of the Milky Way you first need the right type of lens. You need one with as short a focal length as possible, a low f/ratio, and a super-wide angle. You tell us you're shooting at f/2.8, but don't tell us what lens you're using. If you're planning on using single frames rather than stacking, you'll also probably need to shoot at a much higher ISO, think 3200+, before you see much detail in the Milky Way.

The lense was a sigma 19mm @F 2.8. 

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2 hours ago, alacant said:

Any size sensor will do. The best trick is to take many RAW exposures and stack them. Post a -link to- a raw image and tell us what camera you have.

HTH

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xk-WjNG_lvnS8MN80SsTPJyXR1K85Ebd/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TeCU9kP1yQRcoqfpHOk_CTyFbiSG-LWc/view?usp=sharing

 

hope this works.  top one is 13 sec exposure. I tried to do 30sec exposure in second one   ta

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16 minutes ago, asset189 said:

Anyway t  make it less grainy

 

As said take several identical images and stack them in something like Deep Sky Stacker if on a static tripod you will get a bit of natural dithering which help combat the graininess 

There is usually a setting in live view to either show the expected image or a brighter one to make focusing easier check what yours is set on.

Dave

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I think your camera is perfectly ok for this stuff. ( Yep, even the crop sensor  :) )

I've tweaked your 30 second shot a bit and it shows that you look like you didn't use a self timer ! There's also a bit of red creeping in at the bottom that I've dealt with.

If this were my camera I think I'd go f2.8 and 15/20 seconds tops and at 1600 ISO. Also try 3200 ISO if you like. Use a self timer and then do a minimum of 10 max 20 shots, like Davey-t suggests but I'd use Sequator to stack as you've got some foreground.

I wouldn't normally process then post someone else's image but as I had to do it to look anyway .......

Dave.

 

_DSC6664.jpg

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1 hour ago, asset189 said:

Anyway t  make it less grainy

If you are taking single frames, take smaller, jpg images. . Focus the lens on manual on the horizon during daylight then tape it to prevent it moving. Set lens to manual focus at whatever aperture it is good at and vary the exposure starting, say at 10s. I think there's some contrast-colour-brightness control and facility to take a long exposure noise reduction frame in-camera on the alpha.

HTH

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3 hours ago, davew said:

I think your camera is perfectly ok for this stuff. ( Yep, even the crop sensor  :) )

I've tweaked your 30 second shot a bit and it shows that you look like you didn't use a self timer ! There's also a bit of red creeping in at the bottom that I've dealt with.

If this were my camera I think I'd go f2.8 and 15/20 seconds tops and at 1600 ISO. Also try 3200 ISO if you like. Use a self timer and then do a minimum of 10 max 20 shots, like Davey-t suggests but I'd use Sequator to stack as you've got some foreground.

I wouldn't normally process then post someone else's image but as I had to do it to look anyway .......

Dave.

 

_DSC6664.jpg

WOW think I need to learn how to clean up an image , difference is like night and day from mine , mars and Saturn clearly visible too   thanks (any advice re post processing appreciated I only have paintshop pro)

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Hope you don't mind but I had a go as well. Just opened in Photoshop, did a lens correction to get rid of vignetting and distortion. cropped and straightened to get the horizon straight then fiddled with levels and curves. 

I did notice that there is a little bit of star trailing. That's probably from the exposure length, but might be from camera movement. Maybe try reducing the exposure time and upping the iso. 

_DSC6664.thumb.png.4cc46a5b644cd5874cf17cbda90aaabc.png

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