Night star photography Lense

lixxus

lixxus

lixxus

Soldato
Joined
20 Oct 2006
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London
Hi all

I have a m43s gx7 and i am looking to buy a new lens to shoot stars and time lapses.

I have come across both these lenses

Panasonic H-H025E-S LUMIX G 25 mm/F1.7 ASPH Lens

&

Olympus M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8 Lens


Which one would be better and more versatile, especially during day when not shooting at night for street/urban photography.

many thanks for your suggestions
 
avatar12m said:
or you could buy a nikon fx 20mm lens f/2.8 and a lens adaptor that way you can use filters on it and use it as a landscape lens aswell, it will also be allot sharper than any lumix offering at similar price range.

there about £250 plus a good adaptor

whatever you end up with make sure you can stick filters on it so then you have a night/street/landscape lens

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00LECYYR8?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00
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mate thank you so much. this was the pro advice i was looking for.

this is my first mirrorless camera so i appreciate the pro tips.

is there any other lens combinations you would recommend. I currently only have the default lens which came with the camera 14-42mm
 
ok but what about the Panasonic 25 mm/F1.7

i mentioned in op. this has f1.7 and wide angle.

surely that will be ok and it can manual focus
 
ajf said:
That specific adaptor is for adapting Nikon lenses, so if you go that route make sure you get the right option from the list!

Using adaptors will also mean you lose at least some auto control of focussing and aperture.**

45mm is a nice lens, but the crop factor of the M43 system makes it quite a narrow field view for star and street work I think.

**edit.
Actually looking at those adaptors, you will lose auto control of both aperture and focussing, so the lens must have a manual aperture ring to compensate.
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is there any combination of adaptor + lens which will give me manual control of aperture and focus.

Ideally i want to spend £150 on lens
 
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ajf said:
The problem is most modern lenses do not have a manual aperture ring - that Nikon mentioned above is the only one I have seen.
Without that, there is no way of controlling aperture on the lens otherwise as the converter takes away the electronic contacts that normally do that.
The Panasonic 25mm you mentioned, and the Olympus equivalent, are nice little lenses, but remember that on a crop camera it is equivalent to a 50mm on full frame so not an especially wide field of view.

If you have a 14-42 already, just set it to 25mm and see how that goes for the type of photo you want.
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how does the crop factor effects the shot i want. Surely when you point the lens at open sky in a field then it wont matter. It just means you shoot less of the sky ?

I am correct in saying the crop factor for m43s is x2, so if i get a 25mm lens then really its a 50mm ? as you mentioned above.

I'm going morocco in spring and plan to take time lapses in the desert and also night shots of the milkway. I just recently purchased my gx7 couple months ago. i was going to opt for a dslr but decided the m43s was more suited to my needs as i dont take photos a lot and wanted a camera that had electronic shutter timer without remote. It ticked all the boxes apart from the limited lens choice.

any advice would be appreciated once again thanks
 
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I think I will be going for

Panasonic 25 mm/F1.7 Lens
or
Panasonic 14mm/F2.5 Lens

I also went on Flickr and used camera finder to look at star/milkyway shots using my camera and what lenses people were using.

It seems the aperture most shots taken were in f1.7-2.5

I even saw some photos using default camera lens with f3.5. (so now i am thinking might just stick with current lens and get a zoom lens instead)

I took the advice regarding setting my current lens to 25mm. It does crop the pic and i guess more is better so a 14mm lens will probably make more sense, especially if using it around town etc. As morocco has narrow streets, standing back will be a problem with a 25mm lens.

I am just debating if 25mm F1.7 is worth sacrifice of a cropped focus length.

or just get the 14mm lens with F2.5. Ive look at video reviews online about this lens are they are good. it seems to be a popular lens among filmers using blackmagic cam and gh3

so confused as what to do. I dont even have a zoom lens and over the last couple of months with fireworks and blood moon. I found myself missing out on taking amazing shots.

I do take more landscape shots then portrait and street. hence why i am thinking my first lens should be a wide angle
 
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King4aDay said:
Of those I would go for the 14. Very small, optically decent, cheap second hand. The previously discussed 12mm Samyang is a cracking lens if you can live with the manual focus and aperture when using it for other stuff, as is the Samyang 7.5mm fisheye - this would be great for whole-sky starfield photography but again manual focus and a bit niche for other uses.

I have all 3, plus the 9-18, and a sky tracker, but haven't got off my arse to do any astro yet :p
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thanks man

i've had a look at the second hand prices and they seem very reasonable for my budget.

As i will be using this for landscape shots and also street photography the 14mm seems to be more suited to my needs.
 
RaV said:
Wider is definitely better for general astrophotography. Have a read of this article: http://petapixel.com/2015/01/06/avoid-star-trails-following-500-rule/

Was just the first of many that came up on google. The numbers would be slightly different for micro 4/3rds, but it would make the light gathering abilities of those two lens very similar if you were trying to get sharp and not streaking star photos.
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yeah thanks. i guess i just double the focal length of full frame lens

so a 14mm would be 28mm and looking on the chart it suggests a exposure time of 18 second
 
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