Night- / Star photography

• Gear to remember:
  • Tripod
  • Tripod plate
  • Remote / trigger
  • Flashlight
  • Star app for your phone: iPhone / Android
  • Warm cloths

• Use the "500 rule":
  • 500 divided with your focal length (remember to multiply with your crop factor).
    • This gives your longest shutter speed before the stars starts to trail.
  • Example: 500 / 16mm = 31,25sec or 500 / (16mm x 1,6 crop factor) = 19,53sec
  • Take about 3-5 seconds off the time to be sure that you don't see trails

• Standard camera settings:
  • Shoot in RAW
  • White balance 3000-3800K
  • ISO 1600-3200
  • Aperture as wide/open as possible (f/2.8 or lower is preferred)
  • Shutter speed - use the 500 rule minus 3-5 seconds
  • Use mirror lock up mode
  • Don't use "long exposure noise reduction"

• Focus:
  • Focusing on the stars is by far the most difficult part of night- and star photography.
  • Set your lens to manual focus (MF) on the actual lens - not in the camera settings.
  • Focus it all the way to infinity and take an image. 
  • View the image on the camera and zoom all the way in on the stars.
  • If the stars are a bit soft then the focus isn't precise. Turn the focus ring ever so slightly and take another image. Repeat this proces until the stars are 100% crisp.
  • Normally the perfect focus is at infinity and then just a hair back.

• Other:
  • Take multiple shots every time - preferably 3-5 exposure for each shot. These exposures are used in post-processing to reduce noise to almost nothing.
  • For a perfect night shot a decent foreground is needed. If you have the patience then do a sunset shot of the location and leave the camera in the exact spot. Then do the same shot again at night and combine the sunset shot of the foreground with the star shot at night.

Bird-/wildlife photography

You can find a ton of ressources on bird-/wildlife photography through both Google and YouTube - this is my "2-cent" on how to do decent bird-/wildlife photography almost every time.

Bird-/wildlife photography is kinda a new field within photography for me. It's a quite demanding genre for a photographer as you really have to nail to exposure triangle each time to even have a chance of a sharp image.

Start by going to an area with a lot of people in it - a park, nature resort, etc. The animals are much more use to humans and will make it a lot easier to get close in the beginning.

Gear to remember:

• "Silent" clothing meaning that it needs to fit in to the environment and be as soundless as possible.
  • I recommend using clothing for hunting purpose as they are design for the same and have nice weather resistance.
• Tripod and/or monopod.
  • I tend to use my monopod more than my tripod for bird-/wildlife photography.
• Lens with a long focal length.
  • I use a Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 with a 2x extender (makes it f/5.6 and 140-400mm) and I also use a Sigma 150-600m f/5.6-6.3 Sport.
• The general recommendation is to use a fast 1.6-1.7 crop camera house, but to be honest I disagree with this.
  • I use a big full frame 50 megapixel camera and when I nail an image, I really NAIL it! Yes, it's a bit limited in the frame rate but the images are much higher resolution and just more dynamic. 

Standard camera settings:

• Shoot in RAW
• White balance set to cloudy or around 6000-6500K.
• Use manual mode.
• ISO set to AUTO.
  • Your ISO will be high in some situation - don't fear the high ISO, just post-process a bit if the noise is visible when viewing the image 1:1.
• Aperture need to be set to around f/5.8 to f/8 depending on your focal length.
  • Above 400mm use f/8 - below 400mm use f/5.6-6.3.
• Shutter speed is the "BIG" thing!
  • Use 1/2000 or faster whenever it's possible.
  • For birds on the water in low light (sunrise / sunset) I tend to lower the shutter speed to around 1/1000-1/1600 to be able to get a lower ISO but else I always use 1/2000 or faster.
• Use high speed burst for the shutter - the setting where you can hold down your shutter button and the camera keeps taking images.
• Use Servo/Continuous focus program. 
• Exposure compensation is set to 0 or +2/3 of a stop.
  • I mostly use 0 and keep an eye on the images exposure on the screen.
• If your lens has different intervals of focus then use the longest focus distance.
  • My 70-200mm has a focus distance of 1.5m to infinity or 2.5m to infinity - use the 2.5m to infinity for faster focusing.

Focus:

Other: