To get fantastic results from night sky photography you need:
☆ A camera that will allow you to keep the shutter open
☆ A remote shutter trigger
☆ A sturdy tripod
☆ A decent flash unit (or you can use a torch)
☆ Light manipulation Software (I use Lightroom)
You need to get away from the city lights - there's too much light pollution in the city on a night where there's no moon. These shots were taken about 20 minutes away on a beach area about 20 minutes out of a small city of about 100,000 people called Mackay. If you're in a big city you'll probably have to go a lot further.
To get the best detail I used a 20 second exposure on f2.8 and about 25 seconds on f4 although you need to experiment for yourself. Longer than 20/25 seconds you will start to get star trails, which we're not trying to do here.
You'll also want to set your ISO high. I used between ISO 1600 and 2500. It's a trade off between capturing detail and introducing "noise". I like 1600 the best.
Mount you camera on a tripod and fit the lens you want to use at the widest setting you have with the largest aperture setting (depending on the lense I use, either f2.8 or f4). I took most of these photos using a Canon 70-200 f2.8 - a beautiful lens. A few were taken with my Canon 17-40 f4 also a good lens, but the 70-200 is one of the best lenses you can buy and the detail is spectacular.
If there are trees or landscape you want to highlight, once or twice (experimentation required) set your off camera flash to test mode and aim at the area you want to highlight and hit the test button. (Don't try and do it with the flash on camera - you'll get camera flash and besides, you will be flashing at the sky).
In post production, you want to reduce the noise and sharpen the image, this will bring out stars unseen by the human eye.
When I first tried night photography, I was disappointed with the results - they were good, but not great. After boosting the clarity and vibrance in LR - WOW. Suddenly millions (or so it seemed, I've never tried to count them) of unseen stars began to appear.
The next piece of magic is light temperature. By adjusting the temperature of the light, the black changes from bright red to deep blue. You can also play with tint - the combinations are virtually endless.
The following GIF is a combination of some of the results achieved in the same night from the same spot.
