You don’t need a telescope to take beautiful and even dramatic photos of the stars and the night sky. You just need a camera and film. In this article I give you tips and techniques for taking great night sky pictures.

There are two basic types of star photos you can take. The first type is a fast picture with an exposure of less than 30 seconds. This type of picture shows the stars as stationary. The second type of picture you can take is a star trail picture. If you leave the shutter of your camera open for an extended period of time the stars will form long tracks on the picture as they cross the sky. Both types are attractive and easy to do.  In addition to simply taking pictures of the sky you can add landscape features into the picture. This tends to make the picture very dramatic and especially appealing.

The Equipment you need

·         A camera that has the ability to leave the shutter open for long periods of time. This function is often called the bulb function.  The camera should have either a B or a T setting.  This can be difficult to find with newer digital cameras.

·         A roll of high speed film – 800 speed film is good but if you don’t have easy access to this film then 400 speed film will work reasonably well

·         A camera tripod or some other means of keeping your camera very still

·         A baseball hat or a piece of heavy dark cloth

How to take the pictures

1.       Before you go out load your film into the camera and take one indoor picture. This sets the film properly so the developer can see the frames

2.       Bring all your equipment outdoors for at least a half hour before you intend to take the pictures. This allows the optics of the camera to adjust to any temperature or humidity difference

3.       Set your camera firmly into your tripod

4.       Hold the baseball hat or piece of heavy dark cloth over the lens of the camera without touching the camera

5.       Activate the shutter button so the shutter opens

6.       The camera is now live and the film is ready to be exposed

7.       Remove the hat or cloth and this begins the exposure

8.       Count off how long you want the exposure to be – A good place to start would be with a ten second exposure

9.       Replace the hat or cloth so the lens is once again blocked

10.   Close the shutter by releasing the shutter button

That is the whole process of taking a night sky picture.  We use the baseball hat because activating the shutter will cause vibration in the camera which could distort the delicate picture you are taking.  Just the motion of you pressing the button or the motion of the shutter moving can be enough to ruin the picture and take away the pinpoint sharpness of the stars.

You might be wondering how to keep the shutter open without holding the button down. You can use one of a few different solutions. The first solution is something called a shutter cable release. This is a cable that connects to the shutter button of the camera. (Newer cameras might not have this option) You press the button on the end of the cable and then lock it in the shutter open position. The second solution is to use a rubber band or some other type of setup to actually hold your shutter button down.  I have used a rubber band successfully on a basic 35mm camera.

About the Exposure lengths

You should take a notebook with you and keep track of the exposure time for each picture you snap. This way you can judge which exposures worked the best and when you try again on another night your pictures will be improved.  Remember to start out by taking a picture of a household object so the first picture on the frame will be correctly set for the developer. Then take your night sky photos with different time intervals starting at 5 seconds. Then progress to some 30 second shots and 1 minute shots. 

Depending on what part of the sky you are taking photos of once you get over 30 seconds the stars will start to leave trails on the film. You can take exposures of several hours to get really long and attractive star trails. A minimum of about 20 minutes will leave a detectable and attractive trail.

Improving your Star pictures

To get the best pictures try to get the darkest skies possible. Light pollution from houses, streetlights and other city sources can wash out your picture. Also you can add earth bound objects to the picture. Silhouettes of buildings trees or other land based objects under a starry sky can make a very attractive picture.  If you have a nearby object that you want in the picture but it is too dark you can even shine a flashlight on it while the film is being exposed. This will illuminate the object with a soft glow but not ruin the picture.

When bringing your film to the developer make sure you tell them that you have taken night time star photos and that all the pictures should be developed and printed.  As a minimum you should make a note of this on the envelope you put the film in. It will avoid the developer thinking none of the pictures came out and not making any prints.

Astrophotography is the art of taking pictures of night sky objects and there are lots of possibilities for you to experiment in this art without a telescope. All you need is a simple 35mm camera, some high speed film and a few hours under dark skies.

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Well ‘there’s a news flash’ do I hear you say! Naturally, a unique photo printed on to canvas and sent straight to your friend or loved one’s door, would make a wonderful gift.

So, why write an article about it? Well if you’re like us, finding just the right present can often be a very stressful thing, even for the friends we know really well. We need all the help we can get to choose something personal, preferably unique and importantly, useful. Also, although we might like the idea of giving a photo on canvas, we might wonder if there are any little wrinkles or guidelines we should be aware of.

Well, for many years photographs in a pretty store-bought frame have fitted the bill nicely, however, now there is so much more technology available to the average person to turn this good concept into something awesome!

We thought we would present some ideas that you may be able to put to good gift-giving use. Some of the ideas are ours ready for you to put your personal stamp on and others are concepts our clever customers have come up with.

Just a word of caution, if you are going to print a photo on canvas of the gift recipient, make sure it’s a flattering photo and certainly not in any compromising circumstances! We know this sounds like we are stating the obvious, however, you would be surprised how many fall into the trap of printing something they consider ‘funny’, only to find that the photo is highly embarrassing to the receiver! A photo print such as this will likely never see the light of day and you have wasted your money.

Similarly, if you choose to print a scenic photo (remember these are harder to fit the person just right), it’s prudent to consider the décor of your receiver’s home. For example, fashionable now are all the neutral tones ranging from white to features of grey, mushroom, taupe and terracotta. If your friend’s home has these colours, a photo printed on canvas that features a yellow or purple sunrise, (as lovely as the picture no doubt is in it’s own right) just might clash and look gaudy. Again, this otherwise lovely canvas print might never be hung, simply because it doesn’t go with the décor. However, had you chosen a stunning black and white print or a close up of pebbles on the water’s edge in fitting colours, then no doubt it would be appreciated for many years to come.

So now, you get the general idea. In short, take a little time to choose the photo and you will be so glad you did.

So here are just some of the canvas print gift ideas we have printed for our thoughtful customers.

One group of very considerate workmates got together and had of photo of their colleague surfing the perfect wave printed on canvas for him.

Another group of school friends had a collection of head and shoulder photos of them all, put together in a collage and printed as a gift for one friend who was moving away.

For their anniversary, a devoted wife had a photo of her and her husband taken ten years ago in Paris with the Eiffel Tower behind them, printed on a large black and white canvas. The result was stunning and would have brought back wonderful memories for them both.

Then, there was the couple who sent a large canvas print of their three children to their grandparents. What grandparents wouldn’t love to receive such a special and personal gift?

Now here’s a marvelous idea. One couple had a photo taken from the Hubble telescope (downloaded from the NASA site) of outer space, printed on canvas. This was a gift for a nephew moving from Australia to New York. The couple then individualized this gift further by having a little metal plague made with their very personal message engraved on it and they then attached this to the front of the canvas print. Both our customers and the nephew were simply thrilled with the result. You could also try www.solarviews.com. Just remember to pay a little attention to the size of the photo, the larger the file size the better the quality and the larger the canvas print can be.

Here’s another suggestion that we really like and adds a truly personal touch. These days it is easy to add a border around your photo that holds text. This really individualizes the canvas print. The text can state the place and time, can say “With love from”, “Remember when…” or whatever your special message is. The border could be white with black or coloured print to match the photo or could be black with white writing.

As an example, we printed a really characteristic beach scene taken in Puerto Escondido in Mexico. The photo was printed with a white border and had black text stating where the photo was taken and when. The resulting canvas print had a truly professional, ‘limited edition’ feel. If this is something you would like to incorporate on your photo on canvas but are not sure how to go about it, email us and we will be glad to help!

What about this for an idea? There is a number of websites offering digital art for sale and if you look hard enough, even for free on a ‘not for commercial use’ basis! You can simply download the image to your computer then create an account with us on our website and upload the image to us in your checkout just the same as you would a photo!

Triptych! Need a tissue, do I hear you say? What in heaven’s name is a triptych? In plain English a triptych is a collection of three prints. These can be hung horizontally or vertically. These can come in forms only limited by your imagination. So for example, presently hanging in our shop we have a stunning photo of the Hastings river, here in Port Macquarie, taken from a boat at sunset. It is a glorious photo and instead of printing it on one canvas in the form of a panorama, we have simply divided the photo into three and printed each section as a 12” x 12”. Wow! This triptych would surely make a great gift. The collection of three prints doesn’t have to be one photo divided into sections though. The series can be of three similar objects, flowers, animals, plants or scenes. Or what about the three grandchildren we mentioned earlier, they could have been photographed individually and made into a triptych!

This concept can be adapted to groups of four hung in a square or six in a rectangle and so on.

Feel inspired? With just a little thought and imagination your gift giving worries can be over. Photos on canvas really do make great gifts!

http://www.momentz.com.au/

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