Krishnan Photography

Jupiter Saturn Conjunction

December 22nd,2020

Nikon Z50 (Cropped Body) + 600mm + TC17

Manual, ISO 500, F7.1, 1/25th

Manual, ISO 800, F8, 1/125th

File Type – RAW

Manual White balance 4500K

Active D Lighting – None

VR OFF

Manual AF

Self Timer 10 sec

Exposure delay 3 sec

If DSLR, use “Mirror UP”

Heavy Tripod helps !!

Keep Refocusing since focus shifts due to temp variations in the atmosphere !

And take a lot of pics with exposure variations.  This is a deep crop 🙂

On Nikon Mirrorless can set auto bracketing. ( can also do this on most Nikon DSLRs) and can combine with inervalometer and  make the shooting more efficient.

Auto Bracketing for Exposure

Photo Shooting Menu>Auto Bracketing> Auto Bracketing set to AE> No Of Shots, Increment. Increment is the Ev value you want to change. Default value is set to (0F) or no bracketing

So for 5 Shots of 1 EV difference

Number of Shots  (5F )

Increment (1.0)

( 5F , 1 EV means five shots each of 0, -2, -1, +1, +2 EV  )

Built in Intervalometer ( Interval meter)

First Set burst mode on camera

You can use the builtin Intervalometer to get the sets of shots in one click.

Photo Shooting Menu>Interval Timer

Interval say 2″ ( 2 seconds)  (Note: The combined shot time for 5 frames should be less than this no, assuming 5 shots at 1/25th of a sec, total time would be 1.25 sec, so I set 2 sec here with some buffer )

Intervals x Shots per Interval – 3 x 5

Means 3 intervals of 2 seconds. And 5 shots per interval. 

Makes total 15 shots

Then click start in the interval menu.

Sequence to follow

1. Set Burst mode,  set Exposure Delay – OFF

2. Auto bracketing 5F, 1 EV then

3. Set Intervalometer  2″, 3 x 5

4. Click on Start in the intervalometer

 

Moons are dim and so are the saturn rings. Jupiter is way brighter. I merged 3 variations of same shot.  Made 3 TIFFs from same NEF of Over, as shot & Under to get the jupiter moons.   You could also take various exposures and blend in a star stack software. Somehow, I couldn’t do it elegantly. So decided on this.

And

Now,  why do I feel like Mr Spock on the Enterprise bridge ? 😉

 

P.S:  And after the session, dont forget to reset/ change these settings back to your usual ones. Else the next time you start shooting,  you are gonna wonder whatever happened to your perfectly functioning the camera !

balcony / Trip Reports

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