(meteorobs) Meteor photography and fisheye lens advice please

[Leo S]

Chris Peterson wrote:
> Most likely for meteors you'll either be at ISO 400 or ISO 800.
>
>   
I tend to use ISO 800 or 1600 if it's not too light polluted.

I always thought that increasing the ISO would allow you to capture 
fainter meteors. Perhaps this is not the case after all then, and there 
is no need to lust after the latest DSLR's?

How about the sensor's pixel density/size? I would expect the cameras 
with larger pixels to be better for light gathering ability/meteor 
photography.

> For exposure time, the longer the exposure, the lower your sensitivity 
> (sounds backwards, but for meteors it is true, because the sky background 
> washes out the meteor trail). So you want to make your exposures as short as 
> possible, keeping in mind that you lose some exposure time between shots, 
> and if too short you risk truncating meteor events. I'd consider 10-15 
> second shots, taken continuously.
>   
This is what I aim for, for the reasons given above. The actual exposure 
time depends on how fast the sky-fog limit is reached.

I would add, to keep the noise down in your exposures, you should 
over-expose very slightly. You don't want the background to be black, as 
this invites noise. Later on in post processing the actual levels that 
you want can be set.


> If it's cold, the battery life will be annoyingly short, so get an external 
> power adapter if you plan on shooting over many hours. Make sure you shoot 
> RAWs, of course.
>   
Agreed!

Leo