Emily from the future here! Check out my latest astrophotography video, featuring 2x micro four thirds cameras… and also a full beginner’s course! ua-cam.com/video/wqwtbA-F79E/v-deo.html
Good video, I will add 5 things: 1 another great and used lens for astrophotography with mft is the samyang 12mm f2. Is a little narrower than the laowa but has great image quality and is more versatile than a "15mm" lens. 2 remember to disable your in camera image stabilization. When you are on a tripod (a good one) your camera is still as a rock. The image stabilization may disturb your image, creating loss of detail. I did this mistake once. Never will again. 3 shot the photo using the delayed shot. There is one that is made basically for this, adds to second before shooting. So you will not shake the camera using the button. 4 There is also in some cameras a function that reduces the shake caused by the shutter closing. You may check yours. In Oly bodies is called shutter shock and has a little diamond on the frame. It's a plus but not really necessary. 5 you don't need filters usually. Filters may be used but in particular case and if you need something special. Happy starry photos to all! :D
Hope this was helpful! Any questions just leave a comment and I'll try my best to answer them. Timestamps are in the description if you want to skip through. Part 2 is coming next which will go through stacking and editing techniques ☺️🎉📷
@@Durio_zibethinus Hi Durio, I´m user of Em-5 Markii and only can say you that Live Composite is magic and incredible mode to startrails, you don´t need stacking photos in post edition.
I've taken a few really decent milky way photos with the gx85 at 800 iso and the Panasonic 25mm f1.7. At this iso I was about to get a relatively decent output with 6-10 second exposures. Not amazing, but definitely a good way to dip my toes in
Good video! A couple of tips/suggestions. A great budget red light that many already own, but if not, is inexpensive to buy, is a bicycle tail light. Provides plenty of light without totally killing your night vision, just take it out of blinking mode. You didn't talk about focusing... There are many tools (expensive) and techniques nailing focus on the sky, but an important thing to note is that most modern lenses will focus past infinity, so don't be tempted to just slam it to infinity. You mentioned rear screen vs. viewfinder, note that some viewfinders use more battery than the rear screen. The main reason to use viewfinder is to keep night vision. Before I purchased the G9 with night mode, I used a red Wratten #25 filter gel gaffed on the rear screen. A 20x24" sheet can be had for less than a movie ticket. On battery use, I'd suggest anyone into astrophotography or even time-lapses, get a 5 volt to 9 volt step up adapter cable & dummy battery (cheap on Amazon) that way the camera can run for hours on a readily available power brick that can also keep your phone topped off if it has 2 USB outs. Lastly, another inexpensive lens suggestion is the Samyang/Rokinon 12mm f2 lens (or like mine the Cine version with T2,2 f-stop). It is quite inexpensive, but more importantly has very low comatic aberration, which keeps points of light like stars round, a key trait for a good astro-lens. It's quite sharp too, and performs well wide open. Once again, thanks for the video.
Nice " getting started" introduction to Astro Photography, without getting bogged down in all the technical mumbo-jumbo. Well done, and Thank You. Rick Bear
Thank you Emily :) I've dabbled with Astro with a G80 last year. I found I got better results with the noise reduction left on, even with multiple stacked images, but as you say, taking dark frames with the lens cap will work instead. The great thing with M43 (the sensor not the Messier object) is you don't need to worry about taking flat frames for vignetting like you do with larger sensors. Just for kicks I'm about to do a 50 quid M43 challenge where I pick up a camera body sub 50 quid and see what I can do astro wise with it? I think we're looking at something like an Oly EPL2 or a Pany G3 sub 50 quid, but I'll see what I can dig up :)
I just experimented with it last month and tried to write blog article to avoid making the same mistakes next year: * 500 rule is (in theory, with perfect lenses) not sufficient with current high megapixels camera, star trail might be already roughly five pixels long. * you need to experiment with iso, exposure and aperture. f1.7/20mm is pretty good except of vignetting. But other lenses may suffer from coma abberation and astigmatism, making stars in the image corner look sort of like white birds. This might be pretty annoying and much worse issue than five pixels long star trails. It's likely better to use f2.8 instead of f2 and double time and/or iso (serious limitation of fuji x100v) * it's great if your raw editor (e.g. RawTherapee) can use dark frames to compensate for noise and use few of them. * it's good to experiment with noise floor level at different ISOs and time. If you do light painting, you may shut one eye so it stays adopted or just do it slowly with dim light.
Miss Emily, you are my new hero ;-) I've just traded in my Fuji XH1 for the Olympus Em1 Mkii and am new to MFT world. Astro was the one thing I have been worried I might not be able to do (I just started with the Fuji) but you have provided the best real world MFT tips I have seen yet. Sub'd and belled, looking forward to more of your content. Kindest from sunny and warm Los Angeles!
I'm glad to see astrophotography for MFT getting some attention, great work! I can also highly recommend the Oly 8mm f1.8 fisheye lens if you can stretch the budget that far. It will also give you a significantly wider field of view than the rectilinear 7.5mm lens, but you can de-fish the image afterward if you don't like the distortion. The lens is also perfectly usable at f1.8 which is great for keeping exposures down.
A star tracking camera mount will give you long star exposure times without investing in a new lens, and can be cheaper than the Laowa. It will also allow you to do dark frame subtraction and use low ISOs if you have good polar alignment and you don't use too long a focal length.
@@gloppenpadleklubb This is the smallest and least expensive mount I know of. www.moveshootmove.com/ The cable connection they provide does not work with Olympus and Panasonic cameras in time lapse mode, but the manufacturer says they are working on an app. Star tracking on this device works with any camera. Do some research on this and other trackers so you know how polar alignment and tracking works before you decide what to buy. There are good reviews on star trackers here on UA-cam.
Hello, I looked out my window just now (12:24) and saw a bright star, I set my camera (gx80) against my window and blocked all the light, took the picture and omg!!!! You can see everything!!! I was so impressed, I could see the trees in my backyard and I cant see them in real life! Only got the camera the other week and I'm well pleased with it! I had a nikon d60 and nikon a900 before but nothing like this! I'm so happy with the m4/3 system! Just thought I should add to this video!
Cant wait for the editing follow up video! I don't have a MFT camera but do have the canon M5 and I absolutely love it! So small and cute and super fun to use! I hardly ever take my ff camera out anymore. Love your videos and optimism!
Thank you for the great demonstration on Night Sky Milky Way photography. I use a lot of those techniques in addition to a technique called Multi Shot Panorama. The horizon shot of the milky way comes around in Mar to June in the norther hemisphere. A PL15mm f/1.7 is the ideal choice for the 2 or 3 row panorama with 13 sec shutter, ISO 3200 to 4000 at f/1.7. I hope for clear skies this year. I look forward to more of your videos. Thanks.
This was a really great video! I have always felt astrophotography was something akin to voodoo, mysterious and something I have no clue how to do. I just might have to trek out in the cold this week and give it a whirl
Tokina 11-16 mm could be good too. Turns into an 8mm 2.0 with viltrox speedbooster. I'm looking for pixelpeep comparison between that and the laowa lens
I appreciate your video tutorials. I recently moved to m4/3 from aps-c Canon. I'm still figuring out the interface of Olympus OM-D-EM10 ii but I wanted to try out astrophotography so I'm grateful for this video. Keep posting! -Love from the Philippines.
One more tip: images are always darker than you think when you look at the back of the screen in the dark. Because your eyes adjust to the low light situation, the image on the back of the camera appears brighter than it is. When you get back to the computer it will look very dull. Another point that might be worth pointing out is that you can go considerably beyond your normal ISO limit if you're stacking because the random noise caused by the high ISO is mitigated by the stacking process.
I have been to places in Australia, miles from anywhere, where you could see the Milky Way and BOTH Magellanic Clouds with ease. It was an awesome sight. Unfortunately, digital cameras weren't invented then. One of these days...
Hooray for Pentax! I lived in Adelaide, an Australian CITY, where I could very easily and clearly see the Milky Way and the two magellanic clouds. Any clear night I wished. It was sooo good.
@@rjkral I lived in Adelaide as well. The place I saw this magnificent sight was at a school camp up on the Murray River. Adelaide at night was, I found, a little too bright to be able to see the Milky Way reliably, but it's not hard to get on the other side of the hills and block out most of the light.
I recently tried some astro with an E-M1 and 12mm M.Zuiko, side by side with an A7r and the results were very comparable. One thing worth doing though is to use Olympus Workspace (free download) to control you noise levels and then output to a tiff for final editing. I think it only works with E-M1 and upper end PEN models. As long as you match the camera to the Olympus Workspace, you should have no problems controlling noise.
i stumbled across this by looking through your posts (nice stuff by the way). Instead of getting a 7.5 lens (cheap or expensive) i recommend a star tracker like the omegon track mini (around 200 $) and the rule of 500 is completely shattered. i do multiple 3+ min exposures with my 20mm 1.7 pancake without any trails at all. stacking and combining with a landscape is a bit of a pain but worth the time. a tracker opens up a new level of astrophotography and is absolutely worth it.
Aah they’re so good! I recently got a move shoot move tracker (and reviewed!) which is brilliant. I need a bit more practice I think just to get polar alignment right etc but it will be a game changer for sure
Great video! it answered so many questions for me. some i didnt know i had. i am trying to learn enough about astrophotography and time lapse videos (mostly for sunsets and rises) to get some great pics on my Appalachian Trail thru hike next year.
Nice beginners video tutorial. I would like to mention that the 500 rule is a little bit old. I recommend to use the NPF rule. Also, the focus should be set to infinity.
Very useful indeed. Am off to Norway in Feb and hope to see and capture the northern lights. Thought it would be a good idea to start practicing with night skies now and your video is a great start. Thanks very much. Also, good tip about the 7.5 Laowa. I have one of these, usually for cathedral interiors and was wondering if it might be useful for night skies. So pleased it is given the cost of the thing.
Hi Emily. I usually use the 7.5 Laowa that you recommend, as you saw in the instagram photo that you liked about startrails, it is a great objective for astrophotography, with another interesting feature, it is rectilinear. It is not the cheapest, but not the most expensive, it all depends on the quality of the photo you pursue and how you say the use you are going to give it so that it is worth your purchase. Very good recommendation.
Yes I'd love to have one myself! That it isn't a fisheye is probably one of the reasons why it is quite a bit more expensive than the 7artisans equivalent. You make magic with your Laowa!
Here we are talking more about "the world at night" than real astrophotography/deep sky ... I use all my fast lenses and for milky way I prefer Laowa 7.5 / F2. The Oly 8mm 1.8 is also fine but sometimes I have had small troubles during stacking. When using 15mm Leica I stacked a number of images and put them together (using hugin) for a big panorama. ISO: There is not so much more information when using ISO higher than something around 1600 (the histogram should not be completly at the left end) - just check photons to photos input reffered read noise. Using high ISO reduces your dynamic range. But if you take enough photos noise is not a big issue. If you double the number of photos the noise is reduced by half of a lens stop. 4 photos = 2 times less noise, 16 photos = 4 times less noise. Using higher focal length I use my Syrp mini as a tracker. With my cheap self made tracker equipment I come to exposure times around ten times than without (= 2500/mft focal length [s]). So 25s with the Oly 75mm wide open (1.8) is a good equipment for orion nebula or Plejades and other deep sky objects.
Loved the video! I started following this channel some months ago, and I've seen how you're groing in the editing and in the way that you speak! In this video I was felt that I was hearing and old friend talking about one of our favourite subjects! Tku very much!
For m43, use the 250 rule, and you don't then need to consider the ff focal length equivalent. So 250/12 if you're shooting a 12mm micro four thirds native lens.
With my G7. I was able to pull off some great star pics at Deadhorse S.P. using f8--60sec / 1600iso. Kit lens and wide angle attachment. Switch to manual focus OR it wont find an image to shoot a pic. And dont forget about the (lens cap) 😊. I wish I would have gone out of the campground since lights at the bathrooms were kinda bright. But there's always next time.
Nice tutorial video. I'm surprised that you didn't mention the 'live composition' mode of Olympus. I think which is one of the major benefits m43 provide for shooting star trails especially.
It's so good! It's my fave olympus feature for sure. Rumour has it the new lumix g90 has something similar. I wish it would come to other lumix cameras soon. This tutorial was more for freezing stars in place, rather than trails, but for trails there isn't anything better than watching it unfold live on screen. So easy!
Micro Four Nerds that’s exactly what I have; a relatively inexpensive energizer headlamp (315 lumens for $25USD I’m sure you can still find a better deal than that) that shoots both regular and red light. I’m looking forward to learning more about stacking. Thank you for the info! Cheers
Excellent video thanks for the tips and don't forget to discuss focus in the next one because that can be super tricky at night and with a manual focus lens. Also I've used the Photo Pills app for the augmented reality and it is great along with all the other tools it has it's like a Swiss army knife of cameras! Super interested for the next video about stacking. I'm pretty disappointed because I went to a camp ground last summer which has been declared a Dark Sky Preserve by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. Like you said about the desert you could see the milky way core with your naked eye but I didn't take a dark frame or two and now I can't stack them together ahhhhhh!!!!!!!! I'm going to get great shots yet!!!
Oh yes, focus can be tricky for sure. As for stacking, the blank frames would certainly help the process but it will work without provided you took several photos of the same scene
Interesting because I took about 15-20 I think. I'll have to wait and see your stacking process all I get every time I tried one of the free programs was a star trail image.
Enjoyed that Emily,great stuff,I'm a bit confused though how the stacking works in so much as If you dont change anything,wont you just have 10 exactly the same shots,apart from introducing star trails due to the earths movement?. Great stuff matey ,pls keep them coming.
So glad you enjoyed the video 😁 so the software aligns the stars (or you do it manually in photoshop) and it then works out which parts of the image is noise and which parts are stars. The noise spots will remain in the same places no matter what you shoot, because it's coming from the sensor rather than the scene. So with multiple exposures the software can see the reoccurring patterns from the sensor noise. it gets rid of the stuff we don't want and cleans the image up. Basically magic ☺️📷🎉 i hope that made sense I'm not very good at explaining it!
Thanks very much for such an informative, and humorous video! A couple of questions from me. 1) Is there an ideal aperture you want to aim for? I'm guessing deeper DOF, therefore, smaller aperture, at a longer shutter speed? Is there a limit? (ie don't shoot above f/8?) I'm shooting an 8-18mm, so nothing above 30sec exposure. 2) When light painting, just to clarify, are you saying you should / need only to do this with single exposures? Therefore, no light painting for multiple exposures? 3) I don't use Lightroom, but use Luminar, do you know if it also has a stacking tool? Many thanks in advance, keep up the great content!
Hi! So for aperture, we need as much light as possible so always as wide open as the lens allows. All the images in the video were at 2.8. For light painting the foreground, definitely for one frame exposures, but it's also helpful if you're stacking your photos too because there will always be one "main" photo in the stack which makes your foreground look good. I go through some techniques in part two of this video 😊 And to my knowledge Luminar doesn't stack unfortunately, you'd need either photoshop, or starry landscape stacker (cheap on Mac) or Sequator (free for Windows woo!) have a look at part two for a demo on which software might be best for your needs
Thanks for the great video! I'm looking at trading in my full frame kit for M43, mainly to not have as much weight to carry hiking. I've dabbled in a bit of astrophotography and the biggest question I had remaining was how would M43 go for astro. I know it's not going to be as good as full frame, but now I know it'll be good enough for me with some stacking.
Hello Emily and anyone else... in case you dont already know...if you are going to be in NZ check out @iangriffin on Twitter as he is British Astronomer who moved here for the southern night skies and is the Director I think it is, of the Dunedin Museum...very good 360 theater there too.... He posts his astro photos on his Twitter feed and also the ones on the Aurora Australis which is seen pretty easily from this area of NZ.....He goes just Nth of Dunedin to an inlet with a small wharf and gets amazing astro and Aurora photos.... We also have Dark Sky areas in the Mackenzie Basin district Sth Island, Great Barrier Island and Lake Tekapo (Telescopes there on Mt John Observatory..BTW too. Hot Pools there too... There is a Japanese Astronomer there who does brilliant astro time lapses .) Hope this helps some one who may be visiting New Zealand Regards Laurie
The Laowa is a great lens, however i just can't justify using that kind of money on a manual-only lens, meaning I can't use it as freely for other stuff besides astrophotography. For this reason I went for the Olympus 12mm f2 on black friday with additional cashback bonus, so I got it for the same price as the Samyang 12mm f2, which is just ridiculous. The lens is fantastic and more versatile than the Lawao in my opinion. For a wider FOV I just stitch multiple images together, but I will probably go for the Laowa at some point for some added versatility.
This is something I have been wanting to try for a bit and this has given me the inspiration to get out there wasn't to sure about lens think I will try with my 15 mm and maybe my 7.5 Samyang even if it a lot slower at 3.5 then see where I go from there 12 mm f2?
I'm a 4/3's newbie, whats the best value now for a still photographer. I'd also like to use my old manual focus OM lenses from my old OM-1 with some kind of speed booster like I do now with my Sony Nex-6. Thanks, your video's are very informative.
What I found unfortunate is that both olympus and panasonic built in intervalometer modes will ONLY begin counting the time between shots after the exposure completes. So, even with noise reduction disabled, a time lapse with 30 second intervalometer and 25 second exposures will be nearly a minute between exposures no matter what. Olympus got back with me and flat out said this is just how it is and an external intervalometer is the only way around it.
I’m not sure if I understand - if I’m shooting 30 second exposures, I set the timelapse interval to 35 seconds, giving 5 seconds between exposures, so it goes off every 35 seconds
@@MicroFourNerds This is via using the an external intervalometer or the internal? The internal is plagued with a problem than turns your intervals into your set time + shutter speed, unfortunately. It starts counting at the end of an exposure rather than the beginning. I discussed this with Olympus and the short answer is “use an external intervalometer.”
@@stevey500 I’ve just timed this because i started second guessing myself but I use the timelapse feature and it works perfectly. I just timed a 30 second exposure and a 35 second interval and there was 5 seconds between the shot as i intended
Great introduction to Astro. Thank you so much. Two questions as absolut newbie to Astro coming to my mind. I thought the screen would be more power saving than the EVF, as EVF has higher resolution and thus requiring more power? In photography I learned to step down the lens to get sharper results, or is this not relevant for objects far far away? If course it'll be contradicting with capturing as much light as possible. Looking forward to your other videos.
I just think in literal inches to light up the screen will take more power. And yes - stopping down is usually always sharper but we need as much light as possible so there is definitely a trade off for astro 😊
Emily from the future here! Check out my latest astrophotography video, featuring 2x micro four thirds cameras… and also a full beginner’s course!
ua-cam.com/video/wqwtbA-F79E/v-deo.html
Good video, I will add 5 things:
1 another great and used lens for astrophotography with mft is the samyang 12mm f2. Is a little narrower than the laowa but has great image quality and is more versatile than a "15mm" lens.
2 remember to disable your in camera image stabilization. When you are on a tripod (a good one) your camera is still as a rock. The image stabilization may disturb your image, creating loss of detail. I did this mistake once. Never will again.
3 shot the photo using the delayed shot. There is one that is made basically for this, adds to second before shooting. So you will not shake the camera using the button.
4 There is also in some cameras a function that reduces the shake caused by the shutter closing. You may check yours. In Oly bodies is called shutter shock and has a little diamond on the frame. It's a plus but not really necessary.
5 you don't need filters usually. Filters may be used but in particular case and if you need something special.
Happy starry photos to all! :D
Help me .
I want to take time lapse video in night with nikon d7500.
How can I?
This is EXACTLY the tutorial I've been waiting for! Thanks so much for posting! Love your Channel and keep up the excellent content! :)
Hope this was helpful! Any questions just leave a comment and I'll try my best to answer them. Timestamps are in the description if you want to skip through. Part 2 is coming next which will go through stacking and editing techniques ☺️🎉📷
Micro Four Nerds Really useful vid Emily - I’ve always wanted to give this a bash, so this really helps. :)
@@Durio_zibethinus Hi Durio, I´m user of Em-5 Markii and only can say you that Live Composite is magic and incredible mode to startrails, you don´t need stacking photos in post edition.
I've taken a few really decent milky way photos with the gx85 at 800 iso and the Panasonic 25mm f1.7. At this iso I was about to get a relatively decent output with 6-10 second exposures.
Not amazing, but definitely a good way to dip my toes in
Good video! A couple of tips/suggestions. A great budget red light that many already own, but if not, is inexpensive to buy, is a bicycle tail light. Provides plenty of light without totally killing your night vision, just take it out of blinking mode. You didn't talk about focusing... There are many tools (expensive) and techniques nailing focus on the sky, but an important thing to note is that most modern lenses will focus past infinity, so don't be tempted to just slam it to infinity. You mentioned rear screen vs. viewfinder, note that some viewfinders use more battery than the rear screen. The main reason to use viewfinder is to keep night vision. Before I purchased the G9 with night mode, I used a red Wratten #25 filter gel gaffed on the rear screen. A 20x24" sheet can be had for less than a movie ticket. On battery use, I'd suggest anyone into astrophotography or even time-lapses, get a 5 volt to 9 volt step up adapter cable & dummy battery (cheap on Amazon) that way the camera can run for hours on a readily available power brick that can also keep your phone topped off if it has 2 USB outs. Lastly, another inexpensive lens suggestion is the Samyang/Rokinon 12mm f2 lens (or like mine the Cine version with T2,2 f-stop). It is quite inexpensive, but more importantly has very low comatic aberration, which keeps points of light like stars round, a key trait for a good astro-lens. It's quite sharp too, and performs well wide open. Once again, thanks for the video.
Great tips thanks so much for sharing them
Nice " getting started" introduction to Astro Photography, without getting bogged down in all the technical mumbo-jumbo. Well done, and Thank You.
Rick Bear
Thank you Emily :) I've dabbled with Astro with a G80 last year. I found I got better results with the noise reduction left on, even with multiple stacked images, but as you say, taking dark frames with the lens cap will work instead. The great thing with M43 (the sensor not the Messier object) is you don't need to worry about taking flat frames for vignetting like you do with larger sensors. Just for kicks I'm about to do a 50 quid M43 challenge where I pick up a camera body sub 50 quid and see what I can do astro wise with it? I think we're looking at something like an Oly EPL2 or a Pany G3 sub 50 quid, but I'll see what I can dig up :)
I just experimented with it last month and tried to write blog article to avoid making the same mistakes next year:
* 500 rule is (in theory, with perfect lenses) not sufficient with current high megapixels camera, star trail might be already roughly five pixels long.
* you need to experiment with iso, exposure and aperture. f1.7/20mm is pretty good except of vignetting. But other lenses may suffer from coma abberation and astigmatism, making stars in the image corner look sort of like white birds. This might be pretty annoying and much worse issue than five pixels long star trails. It's likely better to use f2.8 instead of f2 and double time and/or iso (serious limitation of fuji x100v)
* it's great if your raw editor (e.g. RawTherapee) can use dark frames to compensate for noise and use few of them.
* it's good to experiment with noise floor level at different ISOs and time.
If you do light painting, you may shut one eye so it stays adopted or just do it slowly with dim light.
Perfect amount and level of background music.
Excellent editing
Damn, the tipp with the stacking and including blank images with the lens cap on sounds amazing. I really have to try that
By far the clearest and most helpful video on this subject that I have yet seen - well done Emily!
Miss Emily, you are my new hero ;-) I've just traded in my Fuji XH1 for the Olympus Em1 Mkii and am new to MFT world. Astro was the one thing I have been worried I might not be able to do (I just started with the Fuji) but you have provided the best real world MFT tips I have seen yet. Sub'd and belled, looking forward to more of your content. Kindest from sunny and warm Los Angeles!
Your information is so practical and useful. I've been listening for years
I'm glad to see astrophotography for MFT getting some attention, great work! I can also highly recommend the Oly 8mm f1.8 fisheye lens if you can stretch the budget that far. It will also give you a significantly wider field of view than the rectilinear 7.5mm lens, but you can de-fish the image afterward if you don't like the distortion. The lens is also perfectly usable at f1.8 which is great for keeping exposures down.
A star tracking camera mount will give you long star exposure times without investing in a new lens, and can be cheaper than the Laowa. It will also allow you to do dark frame subtraction and use low ISOs if you have good polar alignment and you don't use too long a focal length.
BJ Nicholls do you have any concrete mark/brand/modell or link to a “star tracking camera mount” that is not to expensive?
@@gloppenpadleklubb This is the smallest and least expensive mount I know of. www.moveshootmove.com/ The cable connection they provide does not work with Olympus and Panasonic cameras in time lapse mode, but the manufacturer says they are working on an app. Star tracking on this device works with any camera. Do some research on this and other trackers so you know how polar alignment and tracking works before you decide what to buy. There are good reviews on star trackers here on UA-cam.
Hello, I looked out my window just now (12:24) and saw a bright star, I set my camera (gx80) against my window and blocked all the light, took the picture and omg!!!! You can see everything!!! I was so impressed, I could see the trees in my backyard and I cant see them in real life! Only got the camera the other week and I'm well pleased with it! I had a nikon d60 and nikon a900 before but nothing like this! I'm so happy with the m4/3 system! Just thought I should add to this video!
Just here to say that you gained another subscriber. Love the energy you bring!
Cant wait for the editing follow up video! I don't have a MFT camera but do have the canon M5 and I absolutely love it! So small and cute and super fun to use! I hardly ever take my ff camera out anymore. Love your videos and optimism!
Thank you for the great demonstration on Night Sky Milky Way photography. I use a lot of those techniques in addition to a technique called Multi Shot Panorama. The horizon shot of the milky way comes around in Mar to June in the norther hemisphere. A PL15mm f/1.7 is the ideal choice for the 2 or 3 row panorama with 13 sec shutter, ISO 3200 to 4000 at f/1.7. I hope for clear skies this year. I look forward to more of your videos. Thanks.
This was a really great video! I have always felt astrophotography was something akin to voodoo, mysterious and something I have no clue how to do. I just might have to trek out in the cold this week and give it a whirl
Ooh excellent! Definitely give it a go it is lots of fun 😁📷🎉
Tokina 11-16 mm could be good too. Turns into an 8mm 2.0 with viltrox speedbooster. I'm looking for pixelpeep comparison between that and the laowa lens
Awesome Job! I just bought my first telescope last year and now looking at the astrophotography aspect. You made this a lot less intimidating..
Emily, I love your vids for your humour and knowledge.
I appreciate your video tutorials. I recently moved to m4/3 from aps-c Canon. I'm still figuring out the interface of Olympus OM-D-EM10 ii but I wanted to try out astrophotography so I'm grateful for this video. Keep posting! -Love from the Philippines.
One more tip: images are always darker than you think when you look at the back of the screen in the dark. Because your eyes adjust to the low light situation, the image on the back of the camera appears brighter than it is. When you get back to the computer it will look very dull.
Another point that might be worth pointing out is that you can go considerably beyond your normal ISO limit if you're stacking because the random noise caused by the high ISO is mitigated by the stacking process.
Your presentation is so charming - well done!
Thanks! Been meaning to try this out, ones I can bare going outside at night!❄
this is a brilliant tute , all i need now is a camera, nicely presented, even for an old fart like myself, KEEP THE INFO COMING
I have been to places in Australia, miles from anywhere, where you could see the Milky Way and BOTH Magellanic Clouds with ease. It was an awesome sight. Unfortunately, digital cameras weren't invented then. One of these days...
Hooray for Pentax! I lived in Adelaide, an Australian CITY, where I could very easily and clearly see the Milky Way and the two magellanic clouds. Any clear night I wished. It was sooo good.
@@rjkral I lived in Adelaide as well. The place I saw this magnificent sight was at a school camp up on the Murray River. Adelaide at night was, I found, a little too bright to be able to see the Milky Way reliably, but it's not hard to get on the other side of the hills and block out most of the light.
Brilliant vid. Thanks. FYI Venus is in 'Traversing the Pleiades' atm (4 April 2020) . Something you shoot from lockdown garden/ bathroom window etc.
This is exactly what I needed to get my first successful photo! Thank you for making such a complex topic so simple and easy to follow! Thanks!
So glad I could help! ☺️
I recently tried some astro with an E-M1 and 12mm M.Zuiko, side by side with an A7r and the results were very comparable. One thing worth doing though is to use Olympus Workspace (free download) to control you noise levels and then output to a tiff for final editing. I think it only works with E-M1 and upper end PEN models. As long as you match the camera to the Olympus Workspace, you should have no problems controlling noise.
i stumbled across this by looking through your posts (nice stuff by the way). Instead of getting a 7.5 lens (cheap or expensive) i recommend a star tracker like the omegon track mini (around 200 $) and the rule of 500 is completely shattered. i do multiple 3+ min exposures with my 20mm 1.7 pancake without any trails at all. stacking and combining with a landscape is a bit of a pain but worth the time. a tracker opens up a new level of astrophotography and is absolutely worth it.
Aah they’re so good! I recently got a move shoot move tracker (and reviewed!) which is brilliant. I need a bit more practice I think just to get polar alignment right etc but it will be a game changer for sure
Great video! it answered so many questions for me. some i didnt know i had. i am trying to learn enough about astrophotography and time lapse videos (mostly for sunsets and rises) to get some great pics on my Appalachian Trail thru hike next year.
Ooo amazing. That's on my husbands bucket list! Hope you love it and get loads of photos ☺️
Nice beginners video tutorial. I would like to mention that the 500 rule is a little bit old. I recommend to use the NPF rule. Also, the focus should be set to infinity.
Great video. Just on a side note, surprisingly, evfs typically use more power than rear screens.
Such a pleasant voice to listen to.
Impressed with your knowledge also.
I'm subscribing.
Thank you, so helpful and encouraging!
A wonderfully relaxing delivery style. And informative. Cheers.
Very useful indeed. Am off to Norway in Feb and hope to see and capture the northern lights. Thought it would be a good idea to start practicing with night skies now and your video is a great start. Thanks very much. Also, good tip about the 7.5 Laowa. I have one of these, usually for cathedral interiors and was wondering if it might be useful for night skies. So pleased it is given the cost of the thing.
After watching this, and just recently purchasing an Olympus EM1mkII, I just ordered the 7Artisans lens! Thanks for the great review, and advice.
Great content as usual, one thing I did is tape a red gel to my led video lights to have a dimmable option.
That's a great tip thanks!
Great! Thank you! So nice to see a photography video by a happy person!
Great Tutorial
Hi Emily. I usually use the 7.5 Laowa that you recommend, as you saw in the instagram photo that you liked about startrails, it is a great objective for astrophotography, with another interesting feature, it is rectilinear. It is not the cheapest, but not the most expensive, it all depends on the quality of the photo you pursue and how you say the use you are going to give it so that it is worth your purchase. Very good recommendation.
Yes I'd love to have one myself! That it isn't a fisheye is probably one of the reasons why it is quite a bit more expensive than the 7artisans equivalent. You make magic with your Laowa!
Here we are talking more about "the world at night" than real astrophotography/deep sky ... I use all my fast lenses and for milky way I prefer Laowa 7.5 / F2. The Oly 8mm 1.8 is also fine but sometimes I have had small troubles during stacking. When using 15mm Leica I stacked a number of images and put them together (using hugin) for a big panorama. ISO: There is not so much more information when using ISO higher than something around 1600 (the histogram should not be completly at the left end) - just check photons to photos input reffered read noise. Using high ISO reduces your dynamic range. But if you take enough photos noise is not a big issue. If you double the number of photos the noise is reduced by half of a lens stop. 4 photos = 2 times less noise, 16 photos = 4 times less noise. Using higher focal length I use my Syrp mini as a tracker. With my cheap self made tracker equipment I come to exposure times around ten times than without (= 2500/mft focal length [s]). So 25s with the Oly 75mm wide open (1.8) is a good equipment for orion nebula or Plejades and other deep sky objects.
Loved the video! I started following this channel some months ago, and I've seen how you're groing in the editing and in the way that you speak! In this video I was felt that I was hearing and old friend talking about one of our favourite subjects! Tku very much!
So nice of you to say thank you so much 😊📷🎉
For m43, use the 250 rule, and you don't then need to consider the ff focal length equivalent. So 250/12 if you're shooting a 12mm micro four thirds native lens.
Thanks so much for such a clear and useful tutorial.
Excellent vid! I'm just getting started and this information will save me many nights of frustration I'm sure!
This is terrific. You are a great communicator (and funny!)
Thank you for this great tutorial, clearly explained all the important stuff for astrophotography. So much benefited.
Great, very helpful to get an idea how to get started and nicely presented 😃
Thank you very much for great information!!!
You did an excellent presentation, thanks. Cheers.
With my G7. I was able to pull off some great star pics at Deadhorse S.P. using f8--60sec / 1600iso. Kit lens and wide angle attachment.
Switch to manual focus OR it wont find an image to shoot a pic.
And dont forget about the (lens cap) 😊.
I wish I would have gone out of the campground since lights at the bathrooms were kinda bright. But there's always next time.
Many thanks for the video, I’m a newbe
Nice tutorial video. I'm surprised that you didn't mention the 'live composition' mode of Olympus. I think which is one of the major benefits m43 provide for shooting star trails especially.
It's so good! It's my fave olympus feature for sure. Rumour has it the new lumix g90 has something similar. I wish it would come to other lumix cameras soon. This tutorial was more for freezing stars in place, rather than trails, but for trails there isn't anything better than watching it unfold live on screen. So easy!
Great info!!!
Thanks Emily.
One of the best tutorials👍🏼
Great video !
Dang I didn’t know that this was possible with mft system! Great tutorial!
Very cool. I'll have to try this soon. Thanks again for the video.
Part two on editing here: ua-cam.com/video/DlnVFKDz6lc/v-deo.html
Great video! And very spontaneous too.
Astrophotography is therapeutic. 😌 btw a red light is clutch, great advice.
Absolutely! I definitely have learnt this the hard way. I think I'm going to buy a red headlamp next
Micro Four Nerds that’s exactly what I have; a relatively inexpensive energizer headlamp (315 lumens for $25USD I’m sure you can still find a better deal than that) that shoots both regular and red light. I’m looking forward to learning more about stacking. Thank you for the info! Cheers
Thank you for your tutorial. Really enjoyed it. :) Greetings from Palma de Mallorca, Spain.
Great vid. Really helpful, thank you :)
This was really helpful, thank you for it.
Das war mal sehr netter Vortrag... schon lange nicht mehr so gegrinst 😁👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻... und gute Tipps 👍🏻👍🏻
Thanks awesome vid
Brilliant work.Thank you for sharing :D
Excellent video thanks for the tips and don't forget to discuss focus in the next one because that can be super tricky at night and with a manual focus lens. Also I've used the Photo Pills app for the augmented reality and it is great along with all the other tools it has it's like a Swiss army knife of cameras! Super interested for the next video about stacking. I'm pretty disappointed because I went to a camp ground last summer which has been declared a Dark Sky Preserve by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. Like you said about the desert you could see the milky way core with your naked eye but I didn't take a dark frame or two and now I can't stack them together ahhhhhh!!!!!!!! I'm going to get great shots yet!!!
Oh yes, focus can be tricky for sure. As for stacking, the blank frames would certainly help the process but it will work without provided you took several photos of the same scene
Interesting because I took about 15-20 I think. I'll have to wait and see your stacking process all I get every time I tried one of the free programs was a star trail image.
Enjoyed that Emily,great stuff,I'm a bit confused though how the stacking works in so much as If you dont change anything,wont you just have 10 exactly the same shots,apart from introducing star trails due to the earths movement?.
Great stuff matey ,pls keep them coming.
So glad you enjoyed the video 😁 so the software aligns the stars (or you do it manually in photoshop) and it then works out which parts of the image is noise and which parts are stars. The noise spots will remain in the same places no matter what you shoot, because it's coming from the sensor rather than the scene. So with multiple exposures the software can see the reoccurring patterns from the sensor noise. it gets rid of the stuff we don't want and cleans the image up. Basically magic ☺️📷🎉 i hope that made sense I'm not very good at explaining it!
Thanks for sharing!
awesome
Thanks very much for such an informative, and humorous video! A couple of questions from me.
1) Is there an ideal aperture you want to aim for? I'm guessing deeper DOF, therefore, smaller aperture, at a longer shutter speed? Is there a limit? (ie don't shoot above f/8?) I'm shooting an 8-18mm, so nothing above 30sec exposure.
2) When light painting, just to clarify, are you saying you should / need only to do this with single exposures? Therefore, no light painting for multiple exposures?
3) I don't use Lightroom, but use Luminar, do you know if it also has a stacking tool?
Many thanks in advance, keep up the great content!
Hi! So for aperture, we need as much light as possible so always as wide open as the lens allows. All the images in the video were at 2.8.
For light painting the foreground, definitely for one frame exposures, but it's also helpful if you're stacking your photos too because there will always be one "main" photo in the stack which makes your foreground look good. I go through some techniques in part two of this video 😊
And to my knowledge Luminar doesn't stack unfortunately, you'd need either photoshop, or starry landscape stacker (cheap on Mac) or Sequator (free for Windows woo!) have a look at part two for a demo on which software might be best for your needs
Excellent!
Would deepsky astrophotography be possible with a m43? Would love to see you give it a try.
Thanks for the great video! I'm looking at trading in my full frame kit for M43, mainly to not have as much weight to carry hiking. I've dabbled in a bit of astrophotography and the biggest question I had remaining was how would M43 go for astro. I know it's not going to be as good as full frame, but now I know it'll be good enough for me with some stacking.
Hello Emily and anyone else... in case you dont already know...if you are going to be in NZ check out @iangriffin on Twitter as he is British Astronomer who moved here for the southern night skies and is the Director I think it is, of the Dunedin Museum...very good 360 theater there too.... He posts his astro photos on his Twitter feed and also the ones on the Aurora Australis which is seen pretty easily from this area of NZ.....He goes just Nth of Dunedin to an inlet with a small wharf and gets amazing astro and Aurora photos.... We also have Dark Sky areas in the Mackenzie Basin district Sth Island, Great Barrier Island and Lake Tekapo (Telescopes there on Mt John Observatory..BTW too. Hot Pools there too... There is a Japanese Astronomer there who does brilliant astro time lapses .) Hope this helps some one who may be visiting New Zealand Regards Laurie
Thank you. My night sky shots allwase sucked. I'll have another Go. ; - )
The Laowa is a great lens, however i just can't justify using that kind of money on a manual-only lens, meaning I can't use it as freely for other stuff besides astrophotography. For this reason I went for the Olympus 12mm f2 on black friday with additional cashback bonus, so I got it for the same price as the Samyang 12mm f2, which is just ridiculous. The lens is fantastic and more versatile than the Lawao in my opinion. For a wider FOV I just stitch multiple images together, but I will probably go for the Laowa at some point for some added versatility.
Excellent! You definitely got yourself a bargain and I know what you mean about manual focus lenses, they can sometimes be limiting
Great video. When light painting the foreground, how do you cope with the different white balance? Do you have a video on time lapses? Thank you :)
Nice thx
Great video. Is the Lumix 14mm f2.5 lens totally unusable for amateur astrophotography? It seems to be within the parameters, even if not ideal.
Many thanks good video. What M43 camera do you use? Really appreciate your humility. Wish you great success.
This is great info. Thanks 😊
That's a great video! Do you recommend this lens for Star trails? Also, any better options over the years at the same price?? Thanks!
This is something I have been wanting to try for a bit and this has given me the inspiration to get out there wasn't to sure about lens think I will try with my 15 mm and maybe my 7.5 Samyang even if it a lot slower at 3.5 then see where I go from there 12 mm f2?
I'm a 4/3's newbie, whats the best value now for a still photographer. I'd also like to use my old manual focus OM lenses from my old OM-1 with some kind of speed booster like I do now with my Sony Nex-6. Thanks, your video's are very informative.
Subscribed! Nice videos! ✌️
What I found unfortunate is that both olympus and panasonic built in intervalometer modes will ONLY begin counting the time between shots after the exposure completes. So, even with noise reduction disabled, a time lapse with 30 second intervalometer and 25 second exposures will be nearly a minute between exposures no matter what. Olympus got back with me and flat out said this is just how it is and an external intervalometer is the only way around it.
I’m not sure if I understand - if I’m shooting 30 second exposures, I set the timelapse interval to 35 seconds, giving 5 seconds between exposures, so it goes off every 35 seconds
@@MicroFourNerds This is via using the an external intervalometer or the internal? The internal is plagued with a problem than turns your intervals into your set time + shutter speed, unfortunately. It starts counting at the end of an exposure rather than the beginning. I discussed this with Olympus and the short answer is “use an external intervalometer.”
@@stevey500 I’ve just timed this because i started second guessing myself but I use the timelapse feature and it works perfectly. I just timed a 30 second exposure and a 35 second interval and there was 5 seconds between the shot as i intended
@@MicroFourNerds interesting! What camera body? I cannot achieve the same results with my Olympus em1 mkii
@@stevey500 all lumix to be fair! I’ve tried it on the gh5, g100, s5, and s1 and it works fine 😊 I’m not sure I ever gave it a spin on my Pen F
Nice review and tuto ! What do u think about the 7-14 2.8 olympus pro and omd 5 mark 2 for astro ?
Thanks for the review!
Will I get cleaner pictures with pana 12mm 1.4 or oly 17 1.2 lenses?
I don't care too much about super wide angle.
awesome as always! Im using my Lumix G7 that makes me think if it´s good idea to use HDR function in order to stack?
Great introduction to Astro. Thank you so much.
Two questions as absolut newbie to Astro coming to my mind.
I thought the screen would be more power saving than the EVF, as EVF has higher resolution and thus requiring more power?
In photography I learned to step down the lens to get sharper results, or is this not relevant for objects far far away? If course it'll be contradicting with capturing as much light as possible.
Looking forward to your other videos.
I just think in literal inches to light up the screen will take more power. And yes - stopping down is usually always sharper but we need as much light as possible so there is definitely a trade off for astro 😊
The funny faces at the end of your sentences cracked me up 😂😂😂
I had some brill out takes from this one 😂 too many numbers involved!
@@MicroFourNerds 😊😊😊