Hi all,

I go to visit relatives on thier farm in outback New South Wales, Australia a lot and the stars are magnificent without all the light pollution.

Could someone tell me what settings to use to capture their beauty on my Nikon D80 with a Sigma 18-200 lens. All I get is a lot of black and the occasional white fuzzy blur

Thanks all

Have a great 2012.

Boofy

Attached Link: http://www.danheller.com/star-trails.html

you need a tripod for sure as you going to have to set it on manul settings for the long exposture. Just experment with the speed  like shot some at one second or even four seconds. 

put the timer on the camera too so when you press the shutter to take the photo your hand will be off the camera at the time and you will not move the camera. You hand just pressing the camera to take the shot will move the camera on the tripod. Just play around with the time of the timer. Now if you see a shooting star of course you going to have to shot the camera without the timer on. just do it with a easy touch. 

 

hope this will help. you can go as long as 10 seconds just to see what what or even longer. 

 

here a link i type in google photographi9ng stars so it may help you

what you see is not what you know; it in your face

Attached Link: http://www.digital-photography-school.com/long-exposure-photography

here another link telling the time they expose the stars . wow 25 seconds on some. 

what you see is not what you know; it in your face