Landscape astrophotography

[Iem1]

Hi guys,

Im sure this has been asked a million times, but I am looking to try my hand at some landscape astrophotography and I am wondering which lens would be best suited to my equipment.

I currently do deep sky imaging with a WO Z73, skyguider pro and an astro modded Canon 600D, so planning on using the SGP and 600D for landscape too

I have a budget of around £200-£300, so not looking for anything fancy.

I will do more independent research, but if there is one thing I have learned during my astro journey its the advice from the people who have been there and done that is absolutely invaluable and will often save you a lot of money and time  

I am assuming calibration frames (Bias/Flats) are required and acquired in the same manor as with Deep sky imaging? 

Any recommendations on a lens are most welcome, I am based in the UK if that helps. Planning a trip to Currys/PC World later to go take a gander at what they have, but would love to look for something specific after being advised here.

Cheers guys!  

[clarkpm4242]

I'd keep an eye out for a used fast, wide angle prime lens e.g. https://www.wexphotovideo.com/used-dslr-lenses/#p=categoryPath%3A"used>used-dslr-lenses"&facet.multiselect=true&filter=CameraLensType_uFilter:"Standard Prime"&filter=CameraLensMount_uFilter:"Canon EF"&fields=&pagetype=boolean&rows=12&start=0&version=V2&viewType=LIST&facet.version=V2 

[Stickey]

I'm no expert, but I discuss the topic frequently with people who are very capable. Aim for a fast wide angle lens of about 12mm focal length. 

Branded lenses are quite expensive,  but Samyang gets great reviews and is very affordable. 

[900SL]

Astro-landscape is best with a camera lens, wide angle, wide aperture, low distortion and coma. I use a Nikon 20mm f1.8 on a Nikon D610 FF, also a 17-35 f2.8 Tamron OSD (good budget option)

Best to track the background sky and stack, then composite with a low noise foreground image using Affinity Photo. Take foregrounds before it gets to full night so you can close the aperture (for depth of field) and drop the ISO to reduce noise. Try to balance the exposure between foreground and background

You don't need bias and flats etc with a unmodded camera but modified might be different. 

 

This is a fairly poor early attempt at composite, with a wire wool firetrail and the MW from the same location in the background composited. My processing sucked big time back then and there was a lot of LP gradient in the background image. 

 

 

Edited September 29, 2021 by 900SL

[Iem1]

Thank you for the advice guys!

Am I correct in thinking something like one of these would be a decent option for my Canon 600D?

https://www.wexphotovideo.com/canon-ef-20mm-f2-8-usm-lens-used-3014427/

https://www.wexphotovideo.com/canon-ef-28mm-f1-8-usm-lens-used-3016228/

I have no experience with photography (outside of my first summer tinkering with deep sky imaging) so I could be wildly wrong  

[jacko61]

bear in mind your 600d has an APS-C (cropped) sensor so the 20mm lens would give a full frame equivalent 30mm lens field of view.  If you're after a really wide sweeping vista then something in the 12mm range as mentioned above would be better.

Graeme

[Iem1]

Good point! Thank you for bringing that to my attention!

Struggling to find anything smaller, but I have found this.

https://www.mpb.com/en-uk/used-equipment/used-photo-and-video/used-lenses/used-canon-fit-lenses/samyang-14mm-f-2-8-ed-as-if-umc-canon-ef-fit/sku-1296143/

Seems like a better option?

Thanks

[FenlandPaul]

Great field to get into!  I'd highly recommend the Samyang 14mm f/2.8 as a starting point.  Fully manual lens and good build quality generally.  It's an EF mount, so can be used with both full frame a cropped Canon sensors.  I love mine.  The 24mm f/1.4 is also great and hoovers up light, but on balance I preferred my 14mm when starting out (which I'm still doing really!).  Good luck with it and enjoy it!

[Iem1]

Awesome stuff! Took the plunge and ordered it

excited to use it with my astro moded 600D and the SGP! Hopefully get some lovely images, back on the coast of Wales (And near Ellan Valley) in Wales, so should be a blast

Thanks again guys 

[900SL]

Make sure you check it when it arrives, roughly one in three are de-centered or have some optical issues. There's a reason they are so cheap. Get a good one and they are great.

 

[Iem1]

Lens arrived today

Question about the actual set up, am I correct in thinking I need something like this; https://www.wexphotovideo.com/manfrotto-494-ball-head-1643103/?account=853-353-2386&campaign=&group=&mkwid=_dc&pcrid=541679743651&kword=&match=&plid=&pgrid=126481880357&ptaid=pla-559558469182&si=&gclid=CjwKCAjw49qKBhAoEiwAHQVTo8wn1W8Ejp846VT9fk2-oTUqVKt0Zd9fpn8uXvXDPkgsyZ8eLWlA9hoC3_wQAvD_BwE

which will sit on top of this;

 While holding the Camera setup?

I assumed I could use the circular head pictured above for the camera as a static base, but the thread will not fit the camera. Assuming that will hold the ball head.

Also, how best can I check if my Samyang is de-centered?

Apologies for basic questions, completely new to this setup/lenses

cheers guys. 

[Iem1]

Here are a few quick shots I took, no tripod etc ..Just to test it out and get used to the settings. I think it seems ok. Although I am noticing a darkening in the bottom corners on some shots. A uniformly lit subject doesn't display it, so not sure if its a defect or just how it is.

 

Messed around with colour balancing in PS using the camera raw filter.

[Adam1234]

The Samyang is a good choice. Here's some images of the Milky Way I recently took with mine

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/383631-milky-way-in-cornwall/?tab=comments#comment-4148109

I would definitely recommend the ball head. 

@900SLI would also be interested in how to check if the Samyang is de-centered or has optical issues

[Iem1]

13 minutes ago, Adam1234 said:

The Samyang is a good choice. Here's some images of the Milky Way I recently took with mine

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/383631-milky-way-in-cornwall/?tab=comments#comment-4148109

I would definitely recommend the ball head. 

@900SLI would also be interested in how to check if the Samyang is de-centered or has optical issues

Some fantastic images there! 

How do you got about taking the foreground? I have seen people use single images aswell as slightly longer exposures on the foreground to clear it up.

I plan on using my SGP for the stars, I understand focusing (basically getting the stars as small as possible) ..But what ISO should I roughly be looking to use for a 600D? ISO 800 is the sweet spot for the camera in deep sky imaging, same principle or is it likely a higher ISO will be needed?

Sorry for the barrage of questions, I'm trying to formulate a workload before I get out there

those images above are the first time I have used a DSLR without a 430mm refractor hanging off the end of it

Cheers 

[Rustang]

18 hours ago, Iem1 said:

 Although I am noticing a darkening in the bottom corners on some shots.

 

 

 

Messed around with colour balancing in PS using the camera raw filter.

Some len's do vignette unfortunately, even my very expensive Nikon 24-70mm f2.8 vignetted!!

[rickwayne]

One low-rent way to check wide-angle lens performance is to tack five sheets of a newspaper some meters apart on a wall, four corners and center. You can't work with infinity focus this way, but if you separate them enough, you can at least get a few meters back and get the lens into the middle of its focus range. Then ensure your camera is as exactly parallel with the wall as you can determine, focus critically on the center using live view, snap, and examine the results.

You'll have to decide for yourself if the vignetting is objectionable. If you want to reduce or eliminate it, you'll need to use flat frames, and either flat darks or bias frames to calibrate those.  Fortunately those are pretty easy to  do. If you get yourself an LED tracing panel, you can just point the camera straight up and lay the panel right on the Samyang's hood (if you're doing this in daylight, you'll probably want to use masking tape or cardboard wrapped around the hood to prevent light leaks). You can buy expensive calibrated panels if you want, but the cheapo LED ones do quite well for this purpose. You may wish to stand off and shoot some photos of the panel and stretch the daylights out of them to uncover any irregularities in the panel itself, but since you'll only be using about 70mm out of the middle you should do fine. Shoot your flat so that the peak of the histogram (which should be quite narrow!) is in the middle third of the range and you're good to go -- no need to obsess over the "right" exposure, it just needs to be in the sensor's region of linear response.

Bias frames, which are necessary for flats calibration to work correctly, are super-easy -- barely an inconvenience. Set your camera to the same ISO as you use for your light and flat frames, cover the lens (or just shoot with a body cap on), set the shutter as high as it will go, and crack off as many frames as you're willing to stack. I use 100 because why not, but 20 is probably enough and 50 ample. (Flat darks are just flats with the lens cap on; for most cameras, bias are a little more convenient, but either will serve to calibrate your flats.)

It's really good to get into the habit of shooting and processing calibration frames, as you get into more challenging targets it becomes more and more difficult to fix those problems in post without leaving telltale traces.

[Adam1234]

9 hours ago, Iem1 said:

Some fantastic images there! 

How do you got about taking the foreground? I have seen people use single images aswell as slightly longer exposures on the foreground to clear it up.

I plan on using my SGP for the stars, I understand focusing (basically getting the stars as small as possible) ..But what ISO should I roughly be looking to use for a 600D? ISO 800 is the sweet spot for the camera in deep sky imaging, same principle or is it likely a higher ISO will be needed?

Sorry for the barrage of questions, I'm trying to formulate a workload before I get out there

those images above are the first time I have used a DSLR without a 430mm refractor hanging off the end of it

Cheers 

Thanks!

For the foreground I used one of the single images from the run, added it as a new layer in Photoshop, and then (very carefully) masked out the sky. I didn't need to take a longer exposure for the foreground as I had sufficient light from the fishing trawler and cars coming in and out of the carpark!

ISO probably depends alot on other factors such as light pollution, your exposure time, whether you're tracking etc. If you're tracking for example you can do longer exposure so may not need a high ISO so 800 or 1600 would probably be ok. If you're on a static tripod you would be limited to shorter exposure so you would need to up ISO. I usually do some test images of different ISO and exposure to see what works best for that night. ISO 1600 and 30s exposure is probably a good starting point.

 

[Iem1]

This is my first attempt at landscape imaging;

 

I think the upload ruins the quality quite a bit, its a pretty sharp and nice image if I do say so myself!  I will attach the tif too.

Nightscape.tif

clouds were forescast, but I could not resist giving it a shot anyway. As luck would have it, The Pleiades poked their head up into frame too!

Because of the clouds, I took a single 60 second exposure of both the foreground and the sky at ISO 1600, though I think the foreground was a little over exposed?

I also realise its at a bit of a tilt. Struggling to get the ball head mount where I wanted it

But all in all I am happy with it, it was fun and it is a pretty image to an untrained eye if nothing else.

 

Thanks guys for the help!

Any tips