Deep Sky Astrophotography  Gear

Star Adventurer 2i Pro Pack Star Tracker

By far the most important piece of kit for deep sky astrophotography is having a mount to track the stars (or a more accurate way of putting this, cancelling out Earth’s rotation). This is the one I highly recommend, and what I learned on. It allows competent tracking up to and over 200mm lenses if careful on a stable tripod. If you do not use a mount, as I discuss in my tutorials section of this website, you will be forced to use extremely short exposures when using long focal lengths, which will be counter-intuitive to capturing the faint signal of deep sky objects in the night sky. The pro pack variant, as I have shown here, includes a counterweight to be able to use larger, longer lenses such as the Nikon 70-200 2.8S lens I show below. If you go for a smaller mount, for example a Move Shoot Move, this can also work - however be aware that you will not be using long focal lengths in your backyard. It will only be useful for astro landscape shots. If you have a camera, any lens, this star tracker and a tripod, you can learn how to make gorgeous starry night sky pictures.

Deep Sky Astrophotography Lenses

Nikon 70-200/2.8S

For Deep sky astrophotography, my go to lens is the Nikon 70-200/2.8S Nikkor for their mirrorless mount. This lens has excellent performance in keeping aberrations low and stars as round and natural as possible into the edge frame of the image. Most modern 70-200/2.8 zoom lenses are excellent now. The main reason for using the zoom is because it is the only real way to get that 200mm focal length and f/2.8 aperture in a lens for this purpose. Of course, one can choose f/4 variant’s, however all too often those need stopping down even slower to garner good optical performance when it comes to starlight which will hamper performance. As I used this lens, I found that it is useful for framing up at other focal lengths, such as 70mm and 135mm, and optically it is very good at all focal lengths. Ironically on starlight, whilst it puts in a great performance all round, at 200mm it’s actually at it’s best with regards to astigmatism. Stars don’t get much larger off axis or into the corners at 200mm, though there is a bit of coma (comet shaped stars) at the very periphery of the image on full frame. This is more than acceptable however for such a large format sensor. I often use this lens in 1.5x crop mode when shooting the night sky. This is generally very good news for an astrophotographer. Overall, this gives huge flexibility in one lens. It even allows astro mosaics to be constructed if you so wish, down the line.

Voigtlander 50mm f2 Apo-Lanthar

The Voigtlander 50mm f/2 is a lens that has been on my radar and has been for some time. I have been holding off on this purchase just now. The reason for this is that I am waiting to see what Sigma do with Z mount in this regard. I have to stop the Nikon 50mm 1.4G lens I use down to about f/3.5 in order to see good star performance, but I can live with it. This particular lens has class leading performance when it comes to starlight. It can be used wide open and has beautiful round stars right into the edge frames with very little to no chromatic aberration or coma / astigmatism. Unfortunately, this lens has no weather sealing and a large amount of vignetting wide open. If you are new to the astrophotography world, you might be wondering why I use a 50mm lens for this purpose. It gives a nice FOV for the night sky and it is a lens that optically can be made exceptional from a design standpoint, easier than ultra wide angle lenses for example. It also fits most constellations perfectly within the frame. You can use any 50mm lens that you have on a star tracker - just stop it down a little to clean up it’s aberrations.

Astro - Landscape Lenses

Nikon 14-24/2.8S

This is the first type of lens people buy when first getting into astrophotography - a fast wide angle lens, either a prime or zoom. It makes sense as to why this is the case - a lens like this can give expansive sky and foregrounds in a singular shot, and allow (if not using a tracker), exposures from around 10-25 seconds, depending on the focal length and sensor size one is using. I use it more on a tracker, because I can get my ISO even lower, and incur zero star trails this way. As you advance in your field, you will probably become more critical of astro image quality.

This lens surprized me. I bought it to have a stellar Landscape ultra wide angle zoom lens which was optically excellent and could also take filters. However, when I used it on starlight I was shocked by how well it performed, especially at 14mm and at f/2.8. It produces very accurate star colour when teamed up with a body like the Z 8, and it controls lens aberrations that affect astro shooters such as astigmatism (winged stars), coma (comet shaped stars) and CA (fringing on starlight) exceptionally well. It works very well on a tracker here, and it is relatively lightweight for a lens of this class - it is infact the lightest that I know of for any system. It even autofocuses well at night on a modern Nikon mirrorless camera. It can also remember it’s last infinity position, so in a pinch, the next time you boot the camera up, the focus will be spot on, of very close in similar conditions.

Sigma 14/1.8 Art

An obvious choice for night shooting, and an expensive one at that. As I already mentioned, fast ultra wide angle lenses are what many shooters reach for first when they start shooting the night sky. I bought this lens about one year after it came out in 2017 and it has allowed me to capture huge expansive fields of view, with a very fast aperture, clearly, well over a stop faster than the 14-24/2.8 I speak of above. This means, halving the shooting ISO. I still use it to this day on my Nikon DSLRs, but it has a large weight penalty. Being a glutton for punishment, I have hiked up the side of Loch Earn in the dark with heavy lenses like this and star trackers. On my Z 8, I tend to use the 14-24/2.8S now. I would welcome Sigma to bring their 14/1.4 to Z mount. I am always considering UWA options and what is available on the market. Anything that can improve the way I work or offer better image quality is always taken seriously by me.

Nikon 24/1.4G

A 24mm lens is fantastic at night. At first you might think that it isn’t wide enough, but when you really think about framing up a foreground and perhaps part of the milky way or a constellation - you will discover why I say this. It is very versatile.

The Nikon 24mm 1.4 G lens has been a staple with me for many years. So much so, I cannot let it go because it is a dual purpose lens for me - allowing beautiful rendition and bokeh in a wide angle for documentary style daylight shooting and also an astro landscape lens. There are some wide’s now that have this aperture with a bit less astigmatism than this lens has (winged stars) however I find it tolerable for singular shots, and stopped down on a star tracker it works well when taking several minute length exposures of the night sky. The sigma 24mm 1.4 art has less astigmatism if you don’t care about daylight photography; I would probably check it out. Nikon has some new 24mm mirrorless lens out but I am less than impressed by it considering that optically it should be better on z mount, and don’t want to go backwards in terms of light collection for singular, non-tracked shots, you want aperture. Photography is light, and their isn’t a lot of that at night.

Sigma 35/1.4 Art

A 35mm lens is obviously a little bit tighter than a 24mm, which is perfect for getting in tighter on the milky way, framing up low lying constellations, and obtaining mosaic images on a star tracker. Because it is a 35mm f/1.4 lens, it comes with a huge clear aperture size. Clear aperture is a measurement of the diameter of the lens opening as calculated by dividing the lens focal length by its relative aperture or f/number. See here for more detail of why it matters so much - LonelySpeck.com. Because of this lenses clear aperture size when wide open, it collects a ton of light and detail.

The sigma 35mm art lens has held a fantastic reputation over a long period of time as being an excellent astrophotography lens. It came out over 10 years ago and still has great performance on starlight. I tend to stop it down to improve stars on a star tracker, however the f/1.4 aperture makes the possibility of capturing faint meteors and aurora a distinct possibility. I am still using this to this day, via a Nikon FTZ adapter on my Z 8 camera. I will be clear here and state if I were buying now, I would probably consider Tamron’s latest 35/1.4 which has slightly improved aberration performance because it is a newer optical design. I hope Sigma will bring an update directly to Z mount at some point, however I like that I can use this on my other DSLR cameras, as well as the Z mount giving me a lot of options in the field.

Voigtlander 50mm f/2 APO Lanther

A 50mm prime lens is less thought of as an astrophotography lens by most, especially newbies to this field. However, the more one does ultra wide angle pictures over and over, the more they will realise that a 50mm will collect much more detail on a scene, especially when tracking the night sky. This can be used for singular pictures (say with constellations very low on the horizon, or a very tight Milky way core shot on the horizon). For astro landscape use, a 50mm is a great panoramic, or better said, mosaic-making lens on a star tracker. Unfortunately, this lens has no weather sealing and a large amount of vignetting wide open.

I have been holding off on this purchase just now. The reason for this is that I am waiting to see what Sigma do with Z mount in this regard. I have to stop the Nikon 50mm 1.4G lens I use down to about f/3.5 in order to see good star performance, but I can live with it.

Landscape Photography Lenses

Nikon 14-24/2.8S

This lens is lightweight, ultra wide angle that takes 112mm filters. Perfect for my landscape needs and I own it because I use it at night too. Optically this lens is much better across the frame than the 14-30mm and it is much better built overall. It’s optical performance can probably easily achieve it the accolade of the best fast UWA zoom out there, in a relatively small and lightweight package. This lens is extensively weather sealed for inclement weather conditions.

Nikon 24-70/2.8S

This lens surprized me in how much I liked it. It is heavier than the 14-24/2.8, and of course takes filters either slot in, or circular 82mm ones. It is very sharp, and renders fine detail amazingly well without any aberrations affecting the scene. Grassland, trees, fine detail in rocks all come through beautifully with it. It is very well built and designed - and feels good in the hands. Be aware, the barrel extends towards 70mm. This lens is extensively weather sealed for inclement weather conditions.

Nikon 70-200/2.8S

And here we have it - I never, ever saw myself as a trinity owner - however zoom lenses have just gotten so good, and the problem of changing lenses near things like waterfalls and midges, is no fun at all. So here I am. This lens feels prime like throughout the entire range, it is an absolute no brainer. It is also nice to have a shoot from the car lens if I do not feel like hiking in somewhere. Sometimes in Scotland, the best view really is from the roadside! This lens is extensively weather sealed for inclement weather conditions.

Portrait Lenses

Nikon 24mm 1.4G

You may balk at the suggestion of a 24mm prime lens being a portrait lens. However, this one is indeed one; however it is probably best not used for close ups of people due to perspective distortion. This one has been built, in order to beautifully render bokeh behind subjects in environmental portraiture and ultimately give a beautiful subject isolation to them in their environment. It can also be effectively used to photograph objects and other such things. The effects with this lens are subtle and beautiful. I have spoke many times about how portrait lenses do not need to be the sharpest lenses on the planet, and in fact, in my mind, they often benefit in not being this way. This lens has a beautiful under correction of spherical aberration which gives beautiful focus transitions and bokeh and is well built. I have had mine for over a decade now.

Nikon 50mm 1.8D

Whether you are using this on a crop frame body (1.5X, giving an approximate FOV of 85mm, or directly on a full frame sensor), this is one of the cheapest and brightest lenses you can own. It has very interesting character for portraiture and has zero distortion. It has fast autofocus on any body that has a built in auto focus motor, it’s is ultra lightweight, and small enough to fit into almost any pocket with ease. I love the look that this little lens provides. If you look at my blog, you can see more about this lens and why, despite owning the latest and greatest, I still use it regularly. One of the major factors I implore people to consider it, is that it has zero distortion. None. This means subjects are not distorted in any way, straight lines remain so and we can shoot extremely creative, off axis compositions such as quad-framing with no consequences.

Nikon 50mm 1.4D

Another tiny and lightweight 50mm I use often is this 1.4D variant. This one I use where I want subjects to reflect a greater degree of spherical aberration when using the lens from f/1.4-f/1.8 than the 1.8D noted above. This lens has a touch more distortion than the basically perfect 1.8D lens, thus technically for extreme off centre compositions of people etc, the 1.8D is the slightly better choice. For me, this lens sings at close to medium camera to subject distances and has a very ‘filmic’ rendering to the resulting files. It’s bokeh is similar to the 1.8D - rougher than the slightly smoother 1.4G version however I find the rendering to be extremely charming in part due to this. I know it might sound odd, however my eyes see a really good 3D effect using both these D lenses, that have greater aberrations - coma and astigmatism,and rougher bokeh.

Nikon 85mm 1.4D

This is counted as a legendary Nikon portrait lens. This lens began design in 1992, and was released in 1995. I have owned it since 2011 and it has been used a great deal in that time, never once skipping a beat. It is extremely well built, and needs a body with a focus motor built in for autofocus support. It goes without saying, that this lens was built as a portrait specialist rendering lens to optimise all the things that matter for portraits, including bokeh, focus transitions etc. This lens has a good balance of spherical aberrations and chromatic aberration which lend itself to some of the best bokeh and focal plane magic you can find, even today. Other major characteristics are the slight persistence of coma aberration and the way in which the persistence of the lower coma aberration in particular makes for attractive bokeh. It produces class leading skin tones, and is just sharp enough to make people look excellent, with a dreamy look easily achievable, a look in fact, that would be impossible to replicate properly with post processing. Despite it being an old design, I still highly recommend looking for a mint copy for use on DSLRs.

Nikon 135mm 2D DC

Another legendary status lens in the Nikon DSLR line-up is this one, which includes a setting to be able to affect the front and rear bokeh. A subtle effect, but if you are someone that notices these things and has the skills or temperament to use this, it is very nice to have. Even at standard settings and apertures, this lens produces beautiful results, and it pairs very nicely alongside the 85mm. There is also a 105mm version, however, this makes little sense to own if you own the 85mm 1.4D. If you own a DSLR and are serious about portraiture, look no further, especially if you need a longer working distance outside. It goes without saying, this lens is built like a piece of military equipment. It has never one skipped a beat.

Cameras for Landscape, Astrophotography, and Portraiture

Nikon Z 8

My first proper mirrorless camera - the Nikon Z 8. I had been waiting for Nikon to do a proper mirrorless body for years, really since the Z7 came out. (I do not count the Z 7 or Z7ii as they have many flaws for what I do that did not make the juice worth the squeeze at that time. Despite testing these bodies extensively, and wanting to like them - I could not see past their obvious flaws). The Z 8 is a great astrophotography body - because it’s LCD monitor and viewfinder are extremely sensitive in low light. Because it also has a function called ‘Starlight View’ it slows down the refresh rate of the screen in ultra low light, allowing composition without test shots in utter darkness. This is extremely useful to an astro photographer who gets precious time under dark skies as it is. Ideally I do not want to spend that time taking test shots! It is also very useful for framing up deep sky targets and for doing large mosaics. Finally I can see what I am doing with ease. The other useful thing this body has, is a screen that moves vertically as well as horizontally. It seems Nikon finally worked out people don’t just take horizontal shots at odd angles. I want to be very transparent - the RAW files from the Z 8 have a slightly increased read noise compared to the D850 or D810 bodies. The difference is not vast, however it is something to be aware of and a penalty of having a stacked sensor. I suggest using the neutral or flat profile and nailing it at the scene. If shooting landscapes, that means collecting all the data with bracketing. See my Z 8 initial review and thoughts from 2023 here on my blog.

Nikon D850

The Nikon D850 is a legendary beast of a camera body for the Nikon ecosystem. Arguably the best DSLR camera body ever built by any brand - it really can do anything. It has the best autofocusing ability of any DSLR ever made and a brilliantly bright and clear optical viewfinder to boot. It has superb, class leading dynamic range and RAW file malleability at ISO 64, in a 45MP full frame sensor design. This camera gives the best possible dynamic range of any sensor I know of in 35mm format. Very few cameras can allow you to take a shot in a dark tunnel with a light at the end of it, expose for the highlights and bring up the shadows to natural levels with such ease and cleanness to the file. This was the first camera I bought from Nikon that had a tilt screen, albeit only horizontally and this was a big plus over the D810 in certain situations. The Z 8, (above) went on to improve this further by allowing the screen to move in both axes. There isn’t much more I can say about it that hasn’t been said already. It works excellently with all f mount lenses and Nikon have a huge collection available to use dating back decades. If you are in the market for a Nikon DSLR, nothing is better than the Nikon D850 camera body.

Nikon D810

The Nikon D810 is a tried and tested body by myself and countless others. I have had this body since release and it has never skipped a beat. It is extremely well built and has a fantastic full frame sensor - perfect for any landscape photographer. The malleability of the RAW files which it produces is incredible, the D850 DSLR only slightly beats it. If you have never used Nikon before you must experience ISO 64. It possesses so much dynamic range that it just blows the competition away. This camera also does fine in high ISO work also, however the caveat is that it’s liveview monitor is not very sensitive at night, making it tricky to nail focus and composition - however it can be done with practice. I believe this was designed from the ground up as a landscape camera and at that time, this was not it’s focus. However, I still use it for this purpose on my star tracker to this day. With a good prime lens, foregrounds can be extracted at night with huge detail and low noise.

Nikon D200

A camera body from the long and distant digital past (Nov 2005) still belongs in my kit. This is a 10 Megapixel, DX body with a sensor size of 23.6 x 15.8 mm, often referred to as a crop body, to differentiate it from full frame cameras. It was the last camera by Nikon to have a CCD sensor. Most sensors now are CMOS designs (mainly because they are better at high ISO). You might be thinking, why on earth is a landscape / astrophotographer using something this old. Well, I don’t use it for astrophotography, but I do use it for portraiture and for landscape photography. There are several reasons. It is so light to carry as a second body with a 18-55mm lens attached. This means rather than x2 heavy full frame bodies when hiking, this one can come along. This is excellent during long exposures when things can happen with light and my other camera is otherwise engaged. But this all aside, the real reason I use it, and bring it along often, is the completely unique interpretation of the scene it gives. I am of course talking about colour. Because this camera has a strict Colour Filter Array (CFA) that sits across it’s sensor, it differentiates and separates each colour in my opinion better than many modern bodies aimed at high ISO. Many will say you can manipulate any camera RAW to produce the D200 look. I’ve yet to see anyone put their money where their mouth is and actually show this. I do not believe this to be true, because it doesn’t muddy up colour as much as bodies tuned for high ISO as much, it differentiates and saturates individual colours really nicely. This is a camera only for daylight, and I use it at ISO 100 all the time. It is also great to be able to attach the multitude of f mount primes I own to it when needed. I don’t take these on hikes though! See my blog post on the Nikon D200 here.

NB - I have long since stopped worrying about megapixels. I see this debate get in the way of a good photograph all the time. If you want some humour - go and watch this video by Nigel Dansen on youtube who compared the Nikon D200 to a Z7. The comments section is full of people that preferred the D200. Now, if that isn’t ringing alarm bells in your head - it should be. Megapixels don’t matter! See it here.

Final Thoughts

So as you can see, I am a Nikon shooter. The reason for this is because I have always believed Nikon offered the best cameras and sensors (Nikon sensors are made by sony most of the time but are tweaked by Nikon to be even better than what Sony produce - if you can believe that). I use a mixture of old and new lenses and cameras. I have a D200 (2006), D700, D800, D810 and a Z 8 currently. I tend to use what camera and lens I need for the task and / or look. For my landscape work, I shot primes for years and still use them. In recent times, zooms have become so exceptional, I tend to favour them a bit more, the majority of the time, especially for long exposure work. For astrophotography, I use an equatorial mount that cancels out earth’s rotation: allowing me to expose for very long periods of time. I tend to still favour primes for this task. I am looking towards Sigma to bring me options such as a new 20mm 1.4 and 35 1.4 variant direct to Z mount.

So yes, some of the pictures on this website are made with a Nikon D200, a camera that came out in the distant past of digital tech (2006). Many are made with the D800, D810, D850 and Z 8. But only I know that…the subtlety is there on careful examination but what I am trying to say is, I use what achieves my vision. As you may have guessed I shoot at much less than one frame per second, and most of the bells and whistles on modern cameras are useless to me. 

There is perhaps a misconception that landscape photography is       “slow” however, the best light is often fleeting and we have to react fast in order to capture a scene at it’s best. Timing isn’t just  a skill one learns shooting sports, it applies in this genre too. Above all, the  best pictures are not about gear. They take thought and vision, and above all experience. We all get better with practice.