Originally posted by VoiceOfReason Has anyone tried ISO 80 with the K5 for this? If so is it worth it?
Well, this last weekend I was out shooting (using my K5) - with the intent of trying to get the Milky Way with the O-GPS1. But I also wanted to get the landscape element with out the astrotracking (static element smearing) - I had the camera at ISO 80 for the first frame which came out black with a 30 second exposure. So, I had to dial it up to about ISO800 to start to get any definition in the landscape (using 30 second exposures). So using ISO 100 as a target...
ISO .... exposure
800 .... 30 seconds
400 .... 60
200 .... 120
100 .... 240
So, you would probably need to go about 300 seconds (~5 minutes) or so at ISO 80 to get a reasonable image given a moonless dark night. So, the answer is yes - you just need to relax and slow your shutter speed. I wanted to take about 5 frames to stack and average the noise out even more.
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I went over to my other system and was pursing a number of shots that I have taken of this one location at night (MW) with a landscape element. ISO 1600 is pretty clean, but not really enough to print at 20" x 30". On several occasions now, shooting from slightly different locations, and using about 8 to 10 frames, I have what I need (I think). I want to stack, and I tried it with my tone mapping utility, it did a great job, but on closer inspection - still noise. I am going to have to use some stacking that will average out the noise. Either that or I could go shoot a number of 5 minute shots at ISO 80.
Last edited by interested_observer; 08-28-2014 at 08:56 PM.