Photographers help me take a great, yet difficult, pictures using my new DLSR.

Cafe Society
1

So heres the story. I got a DSLR for my birthday. It’s a Nikon D3000. Ive never had a dlsr before and am just learning the INS and outs of how to use the fancy features. I can take great pictures with it using the auto and guide modes but haven’t dug into the manual or semi auto modes. Here is where I need help.

I’m attending a satellite launch in 2 days at VAFB. Here are the relevant facts:

I’ll be as close to the launch as you can get in the DV viewing area.Its supposed to be a great view.

It’s an evening/night launch.

Atlas V.

I have two lenses to choose from. The kit lens which is 18-55mm and telephoto which is 55-200mm.

The camera is a Nikon D3000.

I may or may not be able to use my tripod.

This is a once in a lifetime photo op for multiple reasons I wont go into so I need to get it right ,first time.

So I need some experts to tell me what settings I should use on this camera to get the best pictures I can of the launch.

Which lens? Should I zoom in?

Should I focus on the booster or something else?

Do I want shutter or aperture priority?

Recommended exposure settings? ISO? Aperture? shutter speed?

Obviously the bottom will be much brighter than the top. what can I do?

These lenses have vibration reduction in them. Should I use it?

As it gets higher and higher should my settings change?

As you can imagine once this candle lights I wont get a second chance and will only have 10-15 secs or so of worthwhile shooting. I gotta get it right.

Any help here? Thanks!

2

Believe it or not Google is your friend

for instance Photographing Vandenberg Rocket and Missile Launches and many more.

3

I’d think 55-200, absolutely. How far away are we talking? You definitely want to zoom in, but don’t cut off the vehicle. Try shots with the entire vehicle framed nicely, then un-zoom to get shots of the launch area and exhaust all lit up. Once the vehicle is airborn, zoom way out and try to frame the vehicle above the horizon or whatever landscape. Shots of the airborn vehicle alone against the sky won’t convey much about the size of anything, but take them anyway. If the vehicle goes through a cloud layer, it’ll light up the clouds like a sunset, be ready for that shot. If the sun is not too far below the horizon and you’re really lucky, it will light up of the contrail when the vehicle is just a dot in the sky, and that would be a cool picture to take.

Google for some pix of night launches, like these, to get an idea of what you’ll see.

A tripod would be useful, especially for pix of the vehicle before launch time, when you can take a longer exposure because nothing’s moving; you could shoot a few long exposures of the launch area, bracketing your shots. If you had a second camera on a tripod, you could try to get a shot like this, but that’s just icing on the cake. Once the launch commences, everything will be changing quickly, so shooting hand-held would probably be fine or even desirable.

Since the rocket is probably at effective infinity, you can probably shoot very close to wide-open (low numbered F-stop). Turn off auto-focus completely; The AF will get really confused, and waste the short time you have to take pictures. Before the launch begins, set your focus manually, and you probably won’t need to touch it again.

For the launch, turn the ISO to medium to high, and take faster exposures, as things will be changing quickly. If your camera can take continuous exposures, now is the time to use it. Personally, I’d set my F-stop to something that lets me shoot at at least 1/100th, then manually control the exposure as things happen. Shoot RAW if you can and the continuous shooting mode can support it. You’ll get more dynamic range this way, and you won’t need to worry about your white point. Shoot a little under-exposed if you shoot RAW.

I don’t know how bright the flames will be, but I’d guess pretty darn bright, even in daylight. From what I can see in the pix I’ve googled, the vehicle also gets lit up pretty well initially.

Beforehand, practice fiddling with the F-stop and exposure in full-manual mode, so you won’t have to think about how to do this in the middle of the launch, you’ll just do it.

Bring an extra memory card and battery if you can.

4

Good tip on the autofocus. I didn’t think of that and you’re probably right that it would get all honked up.

I looked at some of the google returns but wanted to have a dialog as well as understand a little better WHY I’d use certain settings.

5

I’d take both lenses. but probably use the 55-200. Tripod would be nice, but I rarely use them. since you dont have to buy film, practice breathing and shooting in the living room in low light. I’ve done shots at 1/4 of a second that were usable handheld, but it takes a lot of practice.

I would probably shoot in AV mode. Raw, underexposed about half a stop. I would use autofocus as well, but my 1DMarkIII will keep up. I don’t know much about the D3000.

BTW, a good book to start with is “understanding Exposure” Pick it up when you get a chance. it will make a world of difference.

6

Wow check out that dudes shuttle shot. Probably hard to “luck” into a perfect shot like that eh?

7

Oh, god yes. Especially the reflections. Great shot.

8

Strangely enough, this appears to be the same shot taken at nearly the same time, but 90-degrees around the circle from the launch site.

Cubsfan I think this photo vs the other one point out another framing/composition issue – using portrait vs landscape mode to frame your shots. The shot you posted was portrait (vertically) framed, and it worked well because the shuttle counterbalanced the foreground reflections. The landscaped (horizontal) composition in the seconds photo was framed to more expansively catch all the exhaust and flames with the shuttle just left of center (another tip: don’t center things, look for things/light/etc. that balance each other. Use the golden section/rule of thirds judiciously.)

9

Bring both lenses, and get there earlier enough to try framing shots with each so you can decide which to have mounted during liftoff.

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So, Cubsfan, how did your shoot go? Got any pix up online we can check out? Anything you have would be great, even ones you’re not happy with; I’ve always wanted to see a launch (of any space vehicle), so my envy that you were present at one is off the scale. If your camera imploded, just give us a first-hand report of what it was like, I’d love to hear about it.

11

Hi. So I did attend the launch and it was an unusually crystal clear night at Vandenberg AFB. Unfortunately my camera skills weren’t up to snuff and everything was more challenging than I expected it to be. It was windy and I had a junky tripod that shook like crazy. My telephoto lens just didn’t cut it and at full zoom things were still pretty small. You could easily make out the shape of the tower and rocket but because I was zoomed all the way in and it was still pretty small things came out pretty shaky and not very good. It was difficult to get the exposure right because it was pitch black out with a small bright white area in the middle.

Ultimately I made the decision to NOT try to take any pics of the actual launch event and instead focused on watching it and enjoying the moment, as this was a launch of a vehicle Ive worked on for years. ULA posted the launch footage online and it can be found pretty easily on YouTube. PM me and I’ll tell you the mission number if you want to look it up and watch it.

I can post the pics I took if you want to give me tips. What’s a good place to do that? Picassa?

Thanks for your help!

12

Sorry I missed this thread the first time around. My tips would have been this:

  1. Manual exposure or possibly spot metering in aperture priority (or program is fine)
  2. No tripod necessary. Once the launch starts, there will be more than enough light for a handheld exposure. Note the specs on the photo posted above. 1/640 sec, f/6.3, ISO 200. That’s basically a full daylight exposure. There is a lot of light coming off the flames. I would have just shot it RAW and used that exposure as a baseline. When shooting RAW, err on the side of slight overexposure, not underexposure (that’s what you want to do with JPEGs). If I were worried, I would shoot 1/640, f/5.6, ISO 200.
  3. The 55-200mm is the lens you want, at 200mm. Even there, you’re going to have to be a bit creative to get an interesting picture, as you’re still going to be quite wide. Note that the picture you linked to was taken with a 500mm lens with a 1.4x teleconverter, for an effective 700mm focal length (not taking into account any crop factor, depending on which camera he used.)

The picture linked to is a very straightforward capture, but requires a bit of forethought, a solid understanding of exposure, and the appropriate gear.