Cannon Beach was cold last Saturday night. We spent a fair number of hours there watching Perseid meteors (none of which show up in this shot) and shooting the sky. Despite the amount of light pollution from the buildings along the beachfront, the Milky Way was surprisingly well-defined.
Pictures like this fall into the small category of shots which really do require high-end cameras and lenses to take. To keep the stars sharp pinpoints, you need to be able to capture the scene using a shutter speed less than about 30 seconds when using a wide angle lens. For a longer lens or latitudes that are further south, the acceptable shutter speed time is even less. To achieve this, you need to bump the ISO way up (1600 or 3200 is normal) and shoot with a large aperture of f/4 or wider.
Really well done Dave, and great tips for shooting the stars!
Jim Denham´s last post ..Time Travel…Sort of
Beautiful picture — odd shutter speed ( 15204279/760214 sec)
Thanks, Jim. I suspect the shutter speed thing is due to a binary fraction conversion somewhere. If you divide it out, it comes to 20 seconds to within 5 or 6 decimal places.
Lovely image. I have one very similar to this one, but just love how you got those illumination on the ocean. I watched that as it was happening from the cars on the street and their headlights sweeping the beach, but don’t think I actually got a shot of it. Glad you did.
Scott Wood´s last post ..A really famous tree – Tree of Life
Oh my word. This shot is so breathtaking. Very impressed. 🙂 Also, thank you for the how-to; it was very helpful and I can’t wait to try my next night shot!
