Testing the Astrophotography Waters....

[THXGEEK]

OK, so I had a few minutes decided to target Orion. Set up my A7CR on the tripod with my FE 20mm 1.4. My settings:

Full manual mode.
ISO 500
F1.4
5 seconds
10 second delay after hitting the trigger.

M42 is plainly visible, but I think overall focusing is still off a bit - I am using focus peaking, zooming onto a subject star and adjust until its a small red dot. Shoot.

Any suggestions to help with focus and exposure?

• ILCE-7CR
• 24.0 mm
• ƒ/1.4
• 5 sec
• ISO 500

 

[DaveC Oz]

Hi Craig. I generally set my A7CR to 6-8 second exposure times with a higher ISO. Generally I will take a few shots at up to 16000 ISO just to confirm composition and focus. Then I dial back my ISO to achieve better exposure. For focus I use magnification only, for me I find focus peaking to be distracting, and also not very helpful on wider angle lenses. It's also important to switch lens and camera stabilization off. I actually no longer use a delay for triggering my shutter, it was explained to me that, as long as the tripod and camera were stable, then the fraction of time that pressing the shutter caused movement, in the context of a long exposure, was so small that it didn't show on the photo. Experiments have backed this up. If you haven't already stumbled across his videos, I would recommend the late Alyn Wallace's You Tube videos as well. Welcome to the Dark side of photography, unfortunately being on the Eastern edge of North America finding really dark skies may be quite a challenge. Good luck, and clear skies, to you, if you want to bounce any ideas around feel free to contact me, I've only been playing with astro a couple of years but it has taught me a lot.

 

[FowlersFreeTime]

Not bad, what is the bortle rating where you took the photo?
By the way, I believe the A7CR has the same rear screen & EVF as my A6700; if so, focus peaking will likely get in the way. I agree with Dave, use magnification only when focusing.