Astrophotography pro Chris Grimmer shows an enthusiast with just a couple of years of taking photos under his belt how to capture amazing images of the night sky
PRO CHRIS GRIMMER
Chris was shortlisted for the Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year in 2016, and he’s also been shortlisted for the UK Astrophotographer of the Year – so it’s safe to say he knows a thing or two about capturing great shots of starry skies. Chris uses a whole host of equipment, from converted EOS cameras to tripod heads that rotate to track stars. You can see his work at https://bit.ly/3M2SBe8
APPRENTICE STEVE DYTHAM
Steve took up photography as a hobby over the Covid lockdowns in 2020 and 2021. He’s based in Peterborough, UK, and is often out with his camera shooting wildlife at some of his favourite local nature spots. While he has a passion for nature, he also wants to learn how to take better landscapes and night shots, so we paired him with astro pro Chris to show him the ropes at a suitably dramatic ruined church near King’s Lynn in Norfolk.
TECHNIQUE ASSESSMENT
Chris showed Steve how to use the Manual mode to take full control
Chris suggested that Steve start out in Manual mode so that he could take total control over his exposures. Chris recommended starting with a shutter speed of 30 secs for pin-sharp stars when using his equatorial mount. He also suggested that Steve increase his ISO to 3200 to make the sensor much more sensitive to light, and open the aperture on his lens as wide as it could go to suck in as much light as possible.
Focusing at night can be tricky, and Chris explained that you have two options: focus on the foreground, or focus on the stars, depending on which you’d prefer to be sharp. To focus on the foreground he shone a bright torch on the church so that Steve’s camera could lock autofocus, and then switched to MF to lock it off. He also showed Steve how to focus on the stars by going into live view, and pressing the magnifying glass button to zoom in so that he could see the stars clearly enough to manually focus on them until they were sharp pin-pricks of light.
Raw files are larger than JPEGs and capture much more tonal information, which is very handy when shooting in low light. However, Chris also likes to have JPEG images to work with, as these smaller files can be more manageable when loading a big batch of star trail photos into software such as the free Startrails program. A good idea is to use a high-capacity memory card, and shoot both raw+JPEG so that you have both file types for editing if needed.
To support the weight of equatorial mounts and heavy telephoto lenses, Chris uses a Charles 2.0 pro tripod from Three Legged Thing – its magnesium alloy construction can handle loads of up to a whopping 40kg. He also uses a 3LT Airhed Pro ball head
