Photography Vs Astrophotography

[simon hicks]

Myself and a couple of my colleagues have to give a talk to a local Photography society about Astrophotography. For one of the opening slides we thought we would try to capture in a few lines of text the big differences between photography and astrophotography, just to get people thinking. We came up with this;

Daylight photography is largely about capturing the emotion/beauty/reality of a subject in a single instant.

Astrophotography is largely about capturing data over an extended time and processing it to reveal the hidden structure and beauty that otherwise lies out of sight.

Apart from the myriad of examples that contradict the above, can anyone come up with something better or improve upon the above?

Cheers

Simon

[muan]

How about "Photography' is about capturing the moment, whereas Astrophotography' is about capturing the past" or suchlike?

Too cheesy?

[Psychobilly]

Have fun...

I have had quite a few members of one of the local Photography socs pop over to see what get up to in th e"shed"

I had invite a while ago to give a talk 18 months later.... Great I thought plenty of tiem to get soem decent images to show them - instead it led to the worst period of weather since I started the hobby so couldnt get any new images to share with them...

Billy...

[simon hicks]

"Photography' is about capturing the moment, whereas Astrophotography' is about capturing the past"

I like that one...clever!

Billy...that's why its good to be able to rip a few images of galleries...properly referenced of course!

[GlynSmith]

I would think that there are more similarities than differences, comparing landscape photography with astro photography.

Landscape photography, especially when photographing dusk/dawn shots often rely on long exposures to reveal hidden detail.

Knowing how to use the equipment, be it a camera, scope, tripod, webcam, point 'n' shoot compact, etc and knowing the limitations is much better than rolling up with the latest 18" EQ mounted light bucket, and not having a clue where to look.

A decent, large telephoto lens bears more than a passing resemblance to a refractor scope, and mirror lenses are small reflectors.

I would say that astro photography (at least at the amateur/home observing level) is as different to landscape photography as studio portrait photography is to landscape photography - Different skills (and many of the same skills) are required in all three disciplines, but they are all aspects of image capturing.

Oh, and they are all money pits.

[stevebb]

I am with Muan - not too cheesy at all and a good "pause for thought"

Steve

[JamesM]

My suggestion would be:

- Terrestial photography is the about the ability to reveal something new, about what we already know.

- Astrophotography is about the ability to reveal what we never knew was there and what we might never know.

There is so much cheese in this, that the extra can go towards making some sandwiches should the presentation run for to long! :D

James

[yesyes]

Might also want to mention that we're dealing with A LOT less light, need to track the object due to the Earth's rotation and never forget mentioning light pollution .. ;-)

[ollypenrice]

Some possibilities;

'Photography' means 'writing with light.' Astrophotography is like that, but without the light...

Photography is likely to leave you in debt. Astrophotography is likely to leave your grandchildren in debt...

Astrophotographers take multi hour exposures of things they can't see from a platform that won't keep still.

Good thread, thanks for the idea!!

Olly

[yesyes]

'Photography' means 'writing with light.' Astrophotography is like that, but without the light...

So we're just ..... writing?

[themos]

we're taking pictures of ghosts...

[Macavity]

<wibble> I wonder where sketching might fit into this. Though an ex-GF convinced me

(despite myself) that art captured the "soul" of the subject.

[Photosbykev]

Photography captures the Now

Astrophotography captures the Past

I was trying to use Now and Then but it doesn't scan nicely

[Catanonia]

Astrophotograhpy shows what the eye can't see --- the universe is bigger than you think.