Hello, I've been trying to google this for a while now. And I keep getting varied results. I took a shot of the night sky once, with my 24-105 Canon lens. And it was ok(read, I wasn't happy). I am going on a cruise. I want a wide angle lens. That can take good night shots(for the record I understand that taking star shots on a boat may not be the best idea). I was thinking this: Canon 16-35mm f/2.8 L II But then saw this new lens: Canon 16-35mm f/4 L IS Obvious difference being the aperture and the image stabilization. Or should I go wider and a prime lens? There is always the: Canon 14mm f/2.8 L II I don't factor money in when buying a lens. Suggestions??? Thanks!!!! Chris
What kind of star pictures are you trying to get? Going wider will give you a wider field of view, but it's not going to give you inherently better pictures of stars. If your shot requires a shutter speed longer than at least 1/4 second then you risk getting motion blur from the boat. You might be able to pull off a shot when the boat is sitting still in very calm water. I'm not sure you'll get any benefit from spending money on a lens just to get star pictures on a cruise - especially the kind of money you'll spend an L-lens. This guy managed to get a star shot from the deck of a cruise ship with a 5 second shutter speed, but honestly I think he got lucky. At the very least it might give you an idea of the field of view a 16mm will give you, and whether you want to spend that kind of money.
If you cannot take a good star photo with a 24-105 I suggest that the problem might not be the lens, but rather your technique or how you are processing it. You can easily take amazing photos with just the bog standard kit lens: You will be best spending some time with google and looking at what camera settings others use and how they post-process their photos... http://petapixel.com/2014/03/28/prep-work-post-processing-depth-star-photography-tutorial/ Experiment with your camera, it take a while to get a good photo and is as much trial and error until you know where the sweet spot is for each specific camera and lens combo. edit: Personally I think shooting stars on a boat is just a recipe for disaster... you are going to be shooting long exposures so the main thing you need is a solid location and a sturdy tripod. A boat may seem pretty stable but even the smallest movement will lead to a blurry picture.
+1 on nothing wrong with kit lenses. Play around with exposure times (anywhere from a few seconds up to 10+ mins if you don't mind star tails) and ISO (don't be afraid of trying iso 12800). If you want to get more advanced, you can try image stacking or even get a motorized mount to adjust for earths rotation.
Hello, Thanks for the advice so far, the reasons I wasn't happy with the shot that I got with my 24-105 were as follows: Not wide enough. I wasn't able to get the scene that I wanted, my parents lovely back yard, and the sky. It was cramped, and I couldn't get far enough away to get the back yard and the sky. F4... I didn't want star trails and was forced to push 20 seconds while still trying to keep the ISO down to a decent level. A 2.8 lens would help with that. And like I said before, I understand that a boat isn't ideal. Far from it really, But i'm not buying this lens for just the one trip. I'll have it forever. I take forever before deciding what lens to buy. In the end I just want to make sure that I have everyone's opinion, have read every review, and am getting the lens that I think is best suited for me.
In that case, image stabilization may actually be a detriment. For good star pictures you want a rock solid tripod. Once you start getting into long exposures it's actually good idea to turn off the image stabilization because the motor can induce small vibrations. It's nice to have while hand-holding your camera and shooting at 1/30 second, not so much when your camera is locked on a tripod shooting at 10 seconds. Plus, it will help drain your battery. In fact, I would recommend spending as much time researching the tripod as you do the lens. Don't buy too much lens and end up skimping on the tripod. The remaining question is just how wide a field of view you consider acceptable from an aesthetic point of view.
For taking night shots the 24-105 is perfectly good. You dont need a fast lens becuase you almost always going to be shooting on a tripod. Although I dont think I would bother even trying if your on a boat! This was shot at 24mm om a crop body. (40 seperate images, each one 30 seconds) on a tripod. All the time in the world by Polarity Photo, on Flickr
For stars.. the focal length only determines the field of view, so obviously it's a personal choice. Most want to capture as wide a view as possible. so a wide lens is preferable. Your 24 should be wide enough for most things. The issue with stuff like this, is aperture. As you need to gather as much light as possible, the wider the aperture, the better, otherwise you'll need to increase ISO, which adds noise. While most lenses are not at their best for sharpness wide open, it's still preferable to high noise levels. So to determine what makes a good lens for wide field astro use, is fast maximum apertures, and good performance AT that wide aperture. The other reason fast apertures are important, is the fact that the earth rotates. If you want star trails, then this isn't an issue, but if you want images like this.... ...then you are limited to speeds that will not make the stars trail. To avoid this, there's a quick rule to be applied called the 600 rule. Basically, it states that if you divide 600 by the focal length used, you will get the maximum shutter speed that will keep the stars trail free. SO a 24mm lens... 600/24 = 25 seconds. As you have a finite speed available, then in order to gather as much light as possible, you only have 2 variables left to play with: Aperture and ISO. In a true dark sky area, the exposure will always pretty much be the same... so a faster aperture will allow lower ISOs. As auto focus is pretty useless in these situations, my recommendation would be the Samyang 24mm 1.4 ED.. It's a great lens.. very sharp, and very fast wide open. Suffers a bit from coma at the edges, but a great lens for this use despite that. Stopped down to f2, it's perfect. I'd still be tempted to use it wide open in a true dark sky site though. The other factor is light pollution. You can't have any if you want decent star shots, and true dark sky sites are hard to come by in this country. One factor you don't mention is your camera? Is it full frame or crop? Everything I've said above regarding field of view assumes a full frame camera. 24mm on a crop camera is not that wide. On a crop sensor camera, I'd go for the Samyang 16mm ED.. These are manual focus lenses, so would have limitations when being used for other things. If you want AF lenses, then the Canon EF 24mm f1.4 would be good for full frame. Canon don't make any really fast, wide primes shorter than that though, and neither do Sigma et al. It all depends if you feel 24mm is wide enough for you with your camera. Only you can decide that. f2.8 is as slow as I'd be willing to go for single exposure astro images, and even then you'll be at ISO6400 possibly, most likely 3200 if you want decent milky way type images, and even with a great camera for noise, like a D4s or a D800 you'll have a fairly gritty image, and most Canon SLRs I've used are not in the same league (no fanboi rants please... this is a fact, and yes, I use both regularly and have no brand loyalty). Using a lens of 1.4 or so allows ISO to drop as low as 1600, possibly 800 at a push, and a decent modern camera can handle that well. A very good camera can make noise completely manageable at ISO1600. You'll see images on Flickr etc taken at f4, 30 secs, ISO 1600, but look closely at them if there's a full res version available, and they look pretty rough. They've clearly recovered a lot of dark detail down from the bottom end, and that is the WORST possible thing to do when trying to keep noise to a minimum. The image I posted above will print at A1, no problem. A lot of the crap you see on Flickr, while looking impressive at screen res, would just look abysmal at A1. Fast lenses are your friend here. I'd still go for the Samyang if you do a lot of this stuff. As for astro images on a boat... forget it. Seriously.... unless it's in dry dock As for image stabilisation. This should NEVER be used while the camera is on a tripod. It actually degrades image quality if you do. If you're on a pod... you don't need it anyway. Just use a good remote release, and if your camera has it, mirror lock up.
Pookey - Its not my thread, but just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to write that up ^^. Really helpful! I dont get much time to shoot this type of stuff, but I cant wait to try again already!
I agree with Bdigital. I am looking at buying my first dslr (a D3300) and its straightforward advice like that really motivates me, especially that photo, wow!. I have been researching a lot, now to get my head around f stops
