Upgrade Your Astro Gear (Star Tracker vs New Lens) 

Thanks for featuring, man! I am really happy that you had a chance to shot from that beautiful cave☺️

Great advice Alyn! Love the images too!

Alyn, it was so helpful to suggest the progression for beginners. I was thinking about a star tracker, but now I have a better understanding of what’s involved with that, and that I am better off upgrading my lens. Thank you!

Really right experience, sigma 16mm f1. 4 is awesome. I have it for 2 years and it's a great step for beginners in night photography for a low price

Hi Alyn, my first ventures into astro (MW) were with the Rokinon/Samyang 12/f2 MF --- lightweight and compact, very inexpensive, and produced (surprisingly) good results. I recently upgraded to the Viltox 13/f1.3. While a fair bit longer and heavier than the Rokinon/Samyang, it is extremely sharp and still much less expensive than an equivalent lens from Fuji etc. I have not yet ventured into trackers (partly because of the size and weight), but have become well-practiced in using StarryLandscapeStacker to blend multiple sky shots to reduce noise, and then to blend the resulting sky shot with a foreground image in PS.

Great video man!!

Fabulous video.I have learnt so much from watching your informative and easy to follow instructions. Putting it all in to practical experience was a challenge and still is to a degree but i am much more confident when out in the night sky than i was 6 months ago. Still lots to learn but use your videos as a reference and guide.Thankyou

I shot nightscapes with an X-T2 and now X-T3. It is known that the color filter arrays on the Fuji X-trans cameras allows a bit more H-alpha to pass to the sensor than Nikon, Canon, and Sony cameras. I also shoot nightscapes with a Nikon Z6 and Z7. The X-T3, tracker, 18mm F/1.4 and Viltrox 13mm F/1.4 produce better nightscape results than my Nikons.

Great video, looking forward to meeting you in Menorca in a few weeks!

I ordered the Samyang 12mm f2 from MPB earlier today and now, here you are recommending that same lens. Makes me feel more confident in my decision. Can't wait for it to arrive. Thanks Alyn!

I've recently brought the Sigma 40mm after watching John Rutters video and it's awesome for tracked milky way

Favourite lens on my crop sensor D7500 is the Samyang 14mm F2.8. Love it and it's cheap. I have the 35mm and 50mm but the 14mm is the business. By the way, absolutely love these posts Alyn. I've learned so much from them. Thank you and all the very best for your new life in T

Awesome. Thank You

blending the foreground with the sky, even untracked (with trees) is a headache😵 I'd love to see a video tutorial or tips to help us! Love your work Alyn! 😄

Good info to think about when new. I picked up lenses from a trade in place here in the states. Once I found the Milky way was visible from home, I had to get wider. Sigma 17-70, f2.8 is nice enough for me practicing in my front field. It's also great for day time landscapes. I tried the pentax 0gps tracker for a year, then upgraded to a Star adventurer and have been going after simple deep sky and details in the milky way. But for landscapes, no tracker. I'm basic, and Sequator does well enough for images on my wall or social media. Deep sky stacker for those other objects. But for me, lenses came first.

Great video idea, the order of how best to progress with gear in all aspects of photography, but particularly astro is lacking on RU-vid. There's lots of videos on how to start out and lots of videos on how to use various bits of equipment, but not much on the most efficient and sensible way to accumulate gear. For fuji, I agree the Samyang is nice, but for a little bit more money, but still relatively cheap, you can buy a Viltrox 13mm f1.4. Which has superior build quality and optics than the samyang and is better than any ultra wides that fuji makes. Unlike the samyang, it has autofocus and unlike a lot of fuji lenses the AF is fast and silent, making this a much more versatile lens and easier to justify purchasing.

really enjoying seeing your videos popping up in the notifications Alyn and really enjoyed seeing the results from your venture out. I was wondering in addition to the options of a star tracker or upgrading to a higher quality lens, where you put an astro modified body, i.e. would you consider that before a tracker?

Some interesting point in there! Been tossing up between exactly these two options lately. Interested in a cracker for deep sky but a prime would be better for meteors etc

I did upgrade my lens first and it was the sigma prime lens too. I go back and forward with getting a star tracker because I don't use Photoshop. But I do want one to try and get a toe in to deep sky astro. Extra long intro song this vlog 👍

I love your channel

I have the Samyang 12mm lens for my Fujifilm X-T30. It works great. I just purchased a right angle finder to fit on my Star trackers polar scope. It saved my neck.

Thanks Alyn on another great and informative video. I have a Nikon D5100 with kit lenses which I've owned for many years. I've recently become more serious about nightscape photography and upgraded my tripod & lens. First with an AF-S Nikkor 35mm 1:1.8 DX, then a Tokina 11-16 f2.8 DXII (both used). I recently purchased a used Star Adventurer 2i. I'm not 100% happy with my camera body and wondered what your (or other viewers) thoughts were on the older 16mp APS-C bodies.

Nice video! I’ve been wondering, what is the music that is used in the intro? I love it!

Another great video with amazing shots. I just acquired the Sony 14mm f1.8. I cannot wait to take it out. Visiting Kauai this week and I am hoping for at least one clear night! Any readers on familiar with Kauai that have suggestions on great Milky Way locations?

Another great video! I use a Tokina 14-20 f2 with my Nikon D7500. I am also trying to learn to use the MSM tracker. 🙄

When I had a Canon 2000D, my favorite crop lens was a Tokina 12-28mm f4. It captured my first Milky Way image. In spite of not knowing what I was doing, it captured a really nice image at ISO 3200, 13 seconds, even at f4. I didn't have a tracker or know about stacking. Even for a single image, it was excellent quality, very sharp, a little coma but not bad. I've switched to Nikon now, and while I have both full frame and crop bodies, I still wanted a wide angle zoom, so I swapped my Tokina 12-28mm f4 for Canon crop body with a Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 for Nikon crop body...through MPB, as a matter of fact. I still have yet to try it, but I'm just waiting for clear skies and warm weather. I also have a Samyang 12mm f2.8, but it's full frame, not crop. Also waiting to try that. My favorite, though, is my Irix Firefly 15mm f2.4 for full frame, which I bought to replace a bad copy of the Samyang 14mm. The rectilinear distortion is well-controlled, and it's only a little more expensive than the Samyang 14mm, with the benefit of a third stop more light.

Glad to be 2 hours early! 🎉

Thanks for the great perspective as usual. Do you know what's happened to the move shoot move nomade

I shoot Full Frame (Sony A7R3) and for me (and I know that everyone will be different) I have found that a low cost tracker (Move Shoot Move (MSM) with the laser pointer aligner) and a fast lens (14mm f/1.8GM, Sigma 35mm f/2.0 or Sony/Zeiss 55mm f/1.8) give a VERY nice compromise. If I don't use the MSM tracker, I also have a Sigma 14-24 f/2.8 Art Series lens with which I can stack individual images but it is a heavy lens and may be pushing the limits on the MSM. Now, my biggest limiting factor (or "LIMFAC") is practice. I live in a Bortle 6 location and it is a LONG way to go to get to some place significantly better.

The Viltrox 13mm f/1.4 is also a very good astro lens i just bought.

I will only use star tracker when I have a really ideal weather condition and an ideal location in order to get the most out of it.

An 18mm focal length on a FF camera is 18mm, on a crop sensor you need to multiply by the crop factor. Example 18mm x 1.6

Ive got the original star adventure plus canon 700d stock lens. Due to ny back issues should i get better lens? I currently cabt use my big rig heq5 mount😊

I've gone around the houses :-) started - as everyone does - taking single shot milky way images with a 16-35mm f/2.8, usually at 16mm. i then went for the cheap 14mm f/2.8 and then a better 14mm f/2.4, before eventually getting into tracking, using a combination of zooms and primes. started with a Star Adventurer Pro, but found I was wasting a lot of time and compositions as it was heavy and PA would slow me down. Then bought the MSM and it was much better, but still found that many images wouldn't blend as hoped, or something would go awry in the field (clouds moving in, car headlights, dewing up, wind gusting etc.). I'm now back to using two lovely lenses (Sony 14mm f/1.8 GM and Sony 24mm f/1.4 GM) and I now take a stack of about 10 images, and do focus stacking. I find the whole thing a lot simpler in the field, and don't have any difficulties stacking/blending foregrounds/sky and focus stacked images. It's also a really lightweight setup and using 14mm and 24mm means I have a fairly easy decision regarding focal lengths, with the 14mm only really being used if I can get close to a very striking foreground. Otherwise its the 24mm. Love your work, saving up for your book, and hope it's going well in Turkey. At least you can work in more favourable climes. I'm in Scotland and whilst we get some aurora from time to time, have some lovely dark skies in the highlands, and have some chances for decent MW shots in spring and autumn, we get baltic conditions when its clear, but largely cloudy and wet.

Can you list down what music you used at the end pleaassee??

I upgraded my Sony A6000 kit lens with the Sigma 16mm f/1.4 and it was an absolutely amazing lens. Now I got myself the new Sony 11mm f/1.8 for astrophotography.

Hi Alyn, great video as always. As a star tracker owner, I was very intrigued by your last shot. Was the 240 sec exposure over multiple images or just the one? I would love to see how you blended the sky with the foreground in photoshop too especially given there is a tree in the image! A thought for a future video when the skies aren't so clear?

What focal length do you recommend for milky way astro photography? I know it's wide, but there is a big difference between 18mm to 24mm (FF). What would make you choose one over the other? Maybe the answer is go for the widest possible lens, you seem to do a lot of panoramas.

Hey Alyn! Can you discuss your method for polar alignment? It is exceptionally difficult with tree cover or in your case - in a cave. Can you talk about how you managed that?

I’m considering to get Benro Polaris. I think it’s good enough for landscape astro shots. It also doesn’t need Polaris in order to do polar alignment.

Hi Alyn Bro :)

I really like my sigma 20mm 1.4 art lens

Thanks, Alyn, for the video and explanations. Question: I live in an equatorial region where Polaris is always very low on the horizon with an altitude of 2.5 deg above northern horizon now and 3.6 deg in winter. I have difficulty finding it due to houses blocking it or even if I go to the top of a hill, i have difficulty spotting it thru the thick hazy atmosphere above the hot ground (always hot, humid and sunny or rains a lot here) coupled with immense Bortle 8 city sky. If I were to ever buy a star tracker, should I consider a computerised one instead so that it will be able to automatically locate the exact orientation for polar alignment? Thanks.

I use a Samyang 8mm 3.5 and Tamron 17-50 2.8. I'd like something faster than the 8mm but given how long I can expose for, it's not the end of the world.

Is it possible to use instant film to get anything like this? Bc it’s not digital maybe it’s not sensitive enough?

Hi

Rokinon 12mm

"it's dangerous around here..." Alyn, what is the danger?

Come on how long we have to wait for the atacama vlog?

Heya😊

18mm on ff is 27mm? I dont get that

Great video Alyn. When I started out with a Canon 1000D, my first “proper” lens was the Samyang 16mm f/2. It was a step change on the Canon kit lens. Nice and chunky and a lot easier to get fine focus. Still love the Samyang lens even though I’ve moved to “grown up” cameras!