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Technique
GuyEdwardes
Basedin Dorset,Guyhasbeena
professionallandscapeandnature
photographerforover 25 years.His
workhasbeenwidelypublishedand
herunsphotographicworkshops
worldwide.Seeguyedwardes.com
and@guyedwardes.Starlight
FOR THE past three years I’ve been refi ning
my technique for wide-fi eld astro-landscape
photography, mainly working close to home
along Dorset’s Jurassic Coast. Looking south
from this coastline, there is very little light
pollution, making it ideal for capturing the
night sky. This area can get very busy with
tourists during the day, but at night I often
have these beautiful locations to myself.
Anywhere with minimal light pollution can
work well on a clear night, so head into the
countryside away from towns and villages. I
always look for a strong landscape composition
- something that might work equally well
during the day. I keep my processing quite
subtle as the camera already reveals more detail
in the night sky than we typically see with our
eyes, so it’s easy to overdo it and end up with
an image that looks a bit too sci-fi!
Use a Sky
Tracker
To maximise the
quality of your night
sky images, a sky tracker is
the way to go. Once aligned
with Polaris (in the northern
hemisphere) it will move
your camera at exactly the
right speed to compensate
for the Earth’s movement,
permitting the use of much
longer exposure times and
therefore lower ISOs and
smaller apertures. My
typical settings when using
my iOptron SkyTracker
Pro are ISO 400 at f/5.6
with an exposure time of
around 2 minutes. The
resulting images are
virtually noise-free and
the stars pin-sharp across
the frame. Due to the
movement of the tracker,
it is necessary to shoot
two images (one for the
night sky taken with the
tracker turned on and one
for the foreground with it
turned off) and blend them
in Photoshop.Embracing the dark can
take your photography to
new creative heights. Three
photographers explain how
to make the most of it