There is a growing interest in a new kind of nighttime photography.  Photographers have been taking photographs of the nighttime sky ever since film was invented.  These photographs were generally long exposures that show beautiful star trails.  But now they are taking clear, sharp images of the stars and planets literally stopped in their tracks.

Astronomers have always been taking photographs of the nighttime sky and their goal has always been to get sharp images of the stars.  To do that they rigged their powerful telescopes with very precise motor drives that slowly turned the telescopes at the same rate as the stars move overhead, effectively holding the stars motionless in the field of view.

But with the advent of digital cameras the notion of photographing the night sky as part of a broader landscape has become increasingly popular.  And it’s not just star trail images that photographers are capturing.  They are capturing spectacular images of the planets, constellations and even the Milky Way over well known features on earth.  Wally Pacholka is one of the best of this new breed of photographers and his work is an outstanding example of this genre of fine art photography.  Check out Wally’s incredible Top Ten Night Sky Images to see what I’m talking about.

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In the previous tip we discussed adjustments you want to make to your images in Lightroom to prepare them for the HDR process to come.

This next tips covers the step where we get the images out of Lightroom.

Lightroom is a RAW image converter (among other things).  It does RAW image conversions extremely well.  Other great RAW image converters are available to us – Capture One, Aperture, and DxO to name a just few.  These are all highly sophisticated products that do an extraordinary job.

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In the first article on exposure (All You Ever Wanted to Know about Exposure) we discussed the exposure basics, the four variables you have to work with – the intensity of the light, the ISO setting, the f-stop and the shutter speed. We made the comparison of light with water. With this analogy, getting the proper exposure is the same as filling a glass of water (or whatever).  In this article we’ll take a closer look at the kinds of challenges we face getting the best exposure.  But first let’s take a quick review.

So, to quickly review, the sensor in a digital camera or the film in a traditional camera requires a specific amount of light to produce a proper exposure. The amount of light that is required depends on the sensitivity of the digital camera sensor or the film. Sensors or film with lesser sensitivity to light requires more light while those with greater sensitivity require less light. Sensitivity is measured by the ISO number regardless of whether we are dealing with film or a sensor. Lower numbers mean lower sensitivity The numbers start at 100, possibly even 50, and increase to 400, 800, 1600 and even higher. Each time the number doubles it requires exactly half the amount of light to make a proper exposure.

Aperture, or f/stop, is the amount of light that is let through the lens. This is controlled by a diaphragm similar to the pupils of our eyes. It can open to allow more light in or close to allow less light. Apertures are measured with a strange set of numbers like f/22, f/16, f/11, f/8, f/5.6, f/4, f/2.8. The numbering system goes backwards so that higher numbers admit less light. Adjacent numbers either double of half the amount of light coming admitted through the lens. In other words, f/4 admits twice the light as f/5.6.

The only other variable then is shutter speed, or the length of time light is allowed to pass though the shutter. Shutter speed is measured in fractions of a second such as 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, 1/250, 1/500, 1/000.

We have control of three of the four variable – ISO setting, f-stop and shutter speed. These are all adjusted to respond to the fourth variable – the intensity of the light. Success as a photographer starts with getting the correct exposure and these are the three things we can manipulate to do so.

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