The Night Sky Photography Handbook

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The Night Sky Photography HandbookFirst Edition 2015 Published in the United States by Luminescence of Nature Press Colorado Springs, CO 80921

www.luminescentphoto.com

ISBN 978-1-4951-6762-1

Copyright © 2015 Jason P. Odell

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission by the publisher, with the exception that owners of this eBook are permitted have a single copy printed for personal use. I authorize single copies of this eBook to be printed by commercial printing services, including but not limited to: FedEx Office®, Office Depot®, and OfficeMax®.

All photos © Jason P. Odell unless otherwise indicated.

Trademarks

All terms in this book that are known to be trademarks or service marks have been appropriately capitalized.

Nikon is a registered trademark of Nikon Corporation, Japan. Canon is a registered trademark of Canon, Inc. Photoshop, and Photoshop Lightroom are registered trademarks of Adobe Systems, Inc.

Hyperlinks

This document contains live hyperlinks. If you have an active Internet connection, you can click on bold blue text to visit the linked content.

The Night Sky Photography Handbook

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Contents

Getting Started 5Basic night photography kit 6

Cameras 6

Lenses 6

Suggested lenses for night photography 7

Accessories 7

Preserving your night vision 9

Setting Up Your Shot 10When to photograph the night sky 10

Seasons 10

Composition 11

Locating the celestial poles 11

Focusing your camera at night 12

Focus-locking techniques 13

Other camera settings 13

Releasing the shutter in the dark 13

Camera white balance 13

Noise reduction settings 14

Capturing Stars and the Milky Way 15Exposure settings 16

Capturing Star Trails 17Composition 17

Creating star trails from a single exposure 18

Camera settings for single-shot star trails 18

Challenges with single-exposure star trails 19

Creating star trails from multiple exposures 19

Interval timer shooting 20

Stacking Images in Photoshop 22

Creative star trails using Star Circle Academy actions 23

Shoot for the Moon 25

Getting Creative 27Adding light to foregrounds 27

Using ambient light sources 28

Capturing multiple images 29

The Night Sky Photography Handbook

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Enhancing Night Sky Photographs 30Adjusting the RAW image 30

White Balance 30

Exposure 30

Contrast and tone adjustments 31

Color adjustments 31

Local adjustments 32

Enhancing stars and the Milky Way in Photoshop 33

Working with composite images 34

Fill light 34

Focus stacking 34

Layer masking 35

Example: Layer masking to replace a blurred moon 35

Resources 37