[Newtophotos]

There is a once in a lifetime meteor shower tonight - what are some good recommendations for taking a picture of it? I have a tripod, k30, and the following lenses: da 55-300mm, da 18-135mm, da* 55mm, da 35mm f2.4, and a sigma 10-20mm.

[VoiceOfReason]

I'd use the DA35 at f/2.8, and if you don't mind star trails set it for longer exposures (20 seconds), ISO 800 (or maybe 400), and set the camera on interval shooting to capture 600 of them too. Then stack.

[DeadJohn]

I see 2 lens choices. The 35/2.4 (stop down to 2.8 for sharpness and fewer aberations) is your widest prime. If you want to go wider, then the 10-20.

A small warning: no one truly knows how many meteors we'll get tonight. It's earth's first ride through this dust trail. It might be fabulous or a flub.

You might decide to do a lot of processing on your best shots, and maybe stack to combine multiple images for multiple meteors and startrails. Shoot in RAW DNG + JPG. Set the JPGs at high quality but only 2 megapixels. You can practice initial stacking with the JPGs for speed, then if something works well stack the raw file.

Don't panic if you've never stacked. Capture good data tonight, learn to stack some other time. Check out startrails.de for easy stacking software.

Point northwards to maximize the number of meteors. Full manual mode. Point at a bright star in liveview to focus. Then try a test at ISO 800, 30 seconds. You want the histogram to peak around 1/3 from the left. If light pollution, or the aperture, or something else pits the histogram way off target adjust something to make the image lighter or darker as needed.

Use the intervalometer menu or an external shutter release to take hundreds of continuous photos.

Good luck. I've got bad weather within a 3 hour radius drive so no meteors for me.

[Newtophotos]

I love in a suburb of Chicago about 30 miles. Normally I can see few if any stars. Should I expect much visibility?

[bass3587]

Not to hijack the thread but would a SMC A28mm 2.8 lents be a good choice. I do have a wider zoom I can use?

[derekkite]

15 seconds max otherwise you get oblong stars. 6400 iso will capture the quick flash of the meteor. I'd go with the 10-20mm. It may depend how tight they are as they come in, something longer like the 35mm would work in that case. Last time I used the 18-55 at 18mm and it was wide enough. It was f3.5. Tonight I'm using my 12-24.

Remember that the meteor will appear for half a second or less, and you need to have the iso high enough to capture it. I found a lower iso didn't get enough of the meteor light and resulted in a very thin line. If you go for a shorter exposure, 5 seconds or so the stars will be less bright but the meteor will be bright. Depends how busy it is, 5 seconds will require lots of shots to capture anything.

We are looking at some cloud tonight, better tomorrow night. I'm going out to see.

This was two years ago with the K5 in August.

[interested_observer]

Tonight’s night sky will feature a rare event: The birth of a new meteor shower. Viewers in North America will have the best chance to catch this cosmic show, which could become an annual occurrence. But if skies are cloudy or lights too bright where you are, catch two live webcasts from the Slooh Space Camera and NASA, the first starting at 3 p.m. PT/6 p.m. ET and the second beginning at 8 p.m. PT/ 11 p.m. ET.

• Watch Live: A Never-Before-Seen Meteor Shower Lights Up the Sky | Science | WIRED

Another idea would be to use the O-GPS1 to essentially "freeze" the star positions while getting a longer exposure window.

[Kendigitize]

I am going to use a K-30 with an m-28 2.8 stopped down 1 stop, 15sec or less exp, iso 1000-1200, white balance set to tungstin. I get pretty good results with this in here in Palm Springs. I have tried my 35 2.4 before, but I don't get very good results with it. I aslo get good results with the kit 18-55 lens with about the same settings. My best results are with the fa-50 1.4, but the field of view is so limmited you might not catch any meteors, unless they are everywhere. I would use the 10-20mm to catch as much of the sky as you can. I'm also going to have the Q setup to see what I can catch with it.

[fgaudet]

I'm setting up with a 10-20 right now. Did some test shots over the last few clear nights and I had decent results using the following settings, K5 with lens @ 10mm, f/3.5, 25 seconds, ISO 1600.

At 30 seconds, even at 10mm the stars were starting to get oblong a tiny bit. 25 seconds gives decent rounder stars. I am setting three cameras, the second will be my K3 with a 17-70 set at 17mm. For the camera settings I'll try f/2.8, 15 seconds, ISO 1600. And the last one, a K7 with a 35mm that I will try longer exposure with (5 minutes maybe) during the very peak of the shower, this last one will give me star trails but hopefully, the meteors will stand out among the trails.

There are a few schools of thinking for star photography, your mileage will vary.

[VoiceOfReason]

Makes me want to set the alarm and then set my 8-16 to 8mm and let 'er rip.

[fgaudet]

Getting ready It's my first meteor shower, kinda exciting

[Sorver]

Getting ready It's my first meteor shower, kinda exciting

I can't wait to see your end product it is exciting good luck👍

[fgaudet]

So far, nothing impressive, only a few one, mostly out of the frame of at least two cameras... And the temperature just dropped a few degrees and I'm running into some major lens fogging issues

[derekkite]

It cleared up for about half an hour but I don't think I got anything. Then the fog rolled in.

[shiner]

What a dud!! I got a few too-faint streaks, maybe because I only used ISO 1600, two aircraft, some fireflys, and this. Doesn't look like the fireflys- lots brighter... but it could be a misbehaving firefly, lol. Oh well, better luck next time.
Oh, Iso 1600, K-01/15mm LTD, 30sec ,interval mode @02:44 EST, 100% crop.