Critique about star trailing fixed my night shots

Someone on a forum told me my 30 second exposures on a fixed tripod were causing obvious star trails. I switched to the 500 rule and dropped my shutter to 15 seconds at 24mm. Has anyone else had better luck with a different rule for crop sensor cameras?

2 comments

2 Comments

tarak1721d ago

Wait, you're on a crop sensor and still using 15 seconds at 24mm? I'm genuinely shook, cause on my Canon Rebel even 10 seconds at that focal length gives me obvious trails if I look close.

hollym1221d ago

...and honestly I still think the whole crop sensor thing gets blown way out of proportion sometimes. Like @tarak17, I've been there with a Rebel too, and yeah, 10 seconds at 24mm on a crop sensor can look like a mess if you pixel peep. But I had this one night out in the desert where I was just too lazy to do proper stacking, so I set my old T5i on a tripod and did 13 seconds at 24mm, f/2.8, ISO 3200. When I zoomed in, sure, there were tiny trails, but from a normal viewing distance and on a small screen, nobody noticed. I think it really depends on what you're sharing the photo for. If you're printing big or showing off on a 4K monitor, yeah, you gotta be strict. But for Instagram or just a personal album, I'd rather push it a little and get more light than obsess over perfect stars.