After a bit of to and fro with Guy and Stink on C*ntbook some of us went out and froze our asses off last night on the basis of a stupid idea.
The photos below were taken at 11PM last night (no moon at all). This is when you can see the stars the best.
I'm not happy with them as both Stink and I managed to go out without our remote shutter releases
50mm prime, with focus wound to infinity:
10-20mm at 10mm pointed SW direction, up in the air:
10-20mm looking West across the sea, with chalk downs to the right of the shot
Take-aways:
Needs more than 30 seconds exposure
I compensated the exposure on these to the max afterwards. In addition to this you can't leave the shutter open too long, as the stars will start to move in the exposure.... which in itself is another interesting project.
You must have a remote shutter release because of the above.
Although the 10-20mm lens is lovely it only stops down to 3.5. The 50mm stops down to 1.8 which is a lot more useful, in extreme darkness if you can frame the shot effectively.
I need to learn how to focus infinity properly in total darkness - the first shot would have been much better if it was focused.
I've actually shot quite a lot when there's been a full moon and that's far more enjoyable because there's sufficient light to shoot landscapes in 'darkness' relatively easily. This is a far more challenging proposition, as we were working in near total darkness.
It was also f*cking freezing on the IOW. For the first shot I had to walk some considerable distance and the temp was genuinely 0 deg C. Very pleased to have heated seats when I got back to the Passat of WIN.
10,000,000 internetz for anyone identifying the object in the first shot shot, BTW.
