The longer nights at this time of year provides an excellent opportunity to have a go at some star photography with your Nikon camera and Nikkor lenses, if the skies are nice and clear of course!

One image can change us.

A picture, a moment can change the way we feel. Change how we see ourselves. Change our understanding and change the rules. Provoke and change history.

MPB puts photo and video kit into more hands, more sustainably. Every month, visual storytellers sell more than 20,000 cameras and lenses to MPB. Choose used and get affordable access to kit that doesn’t cost the earth. Sell the kit you’re not using to MPB. Trade in for the kit you need to create. Buy used, spend less and get more. Buy. Sell. Trade. Create.

Head out into the countryside

Lighting in towns or cities can create an orange glow which can ruin night sky photos. You'll need to try and get out into the countryside where there's less light pollution to get a better shot. It may seem like an obvious thing to say, but you'll be sat still for a long time so it's an idea to wrap up, take a warm drink and be prepared for the cold!

Let in the light

You might think that a telephoto is the best lens for star photography as it will get you closer to the sky, but in truth a telephoto can limit the amount of sky you can fit in your shot. To get the most of the vast sky, and even some landscape in the bottom of your shot, a wide angle lens will be better to get a feeling of the hugeness of the galaxy from your shot. Plus, in the dark, you'll want a Nikkor lens that has the capability to let in a lot of light even if you're not using it at maximum aperture. So something like the AF-S NIKKOR 20mm f/1.8G will be ideal. 

Use a body with good low light capabilities

A camera like the Nikon D3400 will be great for this as it has excellent low-light performance and a wide ISO range, as well as all the manual features you'll need like a really slow shutter speed to absorb all the light needed for astrophotography.
 

Set the camera up for the night sky

You'll need to use a relatively high ISO, say around 800 or 1600, and surprisingly, a large aperture. You'll also need to set the focus to infinity. Use bulb mode so you can control how long the shutter is open for. If you don't want to capture star trails, that is the stars creating lines as they move across the sky, you can use the rule of 600. By dividing 600 by the focal length of the lens, you'll get the number of seconds you can leave the shutter open without star trails appearing. You'll need to take several images without moving the camera, why you need to do this is explained below.

Stack your photos for real impact

Your images will most likely look a little plain on the camera screen, but don't panic. You'll need to stack your images together in post processing and bring the colours up to create that stunning night sky image. When you've stacked the images you need to merge them into a TIFF file. You can then edit the curves and levels in Photoshop to bring out the colours of the sky that can't usually be seen with the human eye. 

It might take you a few attempts to get a good final image, but don't give up!