Nightshots with the Leica M240 (Milky Way, Stars)

[SpriteSir]

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Hello People,

are there any people doing night shots with the Leica M240? Obviously Leica isn't exactly the perfect gear to do so, but i would be glad about your opinion and words for improvement.

In my opinion there are several problems when shooting in night with the Leica M240 (or Leica in general):

1. Exposure Limit when doing longer exposure with higher ISO (For example 8sek max when ISO1600)
2. Selection of wide AND fast lenses is quite shallow
3. Problems with higher ISO (for example the M10 would be a lot better here)

I tried to solve these problems in order to get some nightshots and tried it this way:

1. "Hack" the Exposure Limit in Bulb Mode (saw the Instruction here. It lets you do exposure till 60sec with high ISO)
2. Expose a bit longer than normally because Lenses are slower
3. ISO at 1600-2400

Do you have any more tips on how to do it better? What lenses do you use? How are you doing night shots? Let me know.

 

PS: Tried it yesterday with the Milky Way, this was the result:

 

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[darylgo]

Great shot.  My attempts at Milky Way required f1.4 lenses, the current 50mm is quite good.  The 21mm Summilux has coma, the other Summilux’ I didn’t try. Iirc the Noctilux has coma also. The 50mm could be used quite nicely to stitch several images together, at the max  8 seconds a series only takes  a few minutes to shoot. Alternatively, I’ve put the camera on continuous, cable release locked and set the camera to shoot until the battery exhausts to get star trails, the dark frame causes gaps that can be post processed out with effort.  The exposure hack in bulb was not consistent for my m240 body. 8 seconds at f1.4, iso 3200 worked well, requiring good Lightroom technique to get color in the core. Either Canon  or Nikon works better and the relatively cheap 14mm f2.8 Rokinon in either mount can be adapted to the Leica however exposure is very thin.  I haven’t tried the m10 but would expect better noise although the color might be limited similar to the M240.  I see a nice trail of lights in your shot, my results are similar and it’s almost impossible to get one without a streak somewhere. 

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[jankap]

What about stacking to get more light? You know the  Photopills.app? Streaks, there are too many blinking airplanes and light reflecting satellites in the sky. Meteors would be ok.

[darylgo]

Meteor photos would be great, can’t remember seeing any.  
 

Stacking images is not something I’ve read about in any nighttime sky books, it would require a drive and the foreground would move.  Can’t say for sure though. 

[SpriteSir]

vor 3 Stunden schrieb darylgo:

Great shot.  My attempts at Milky Way required f1.4 lenses, the current 50mm is quite good.  The 21mm Summilux has coma, the other Summilux’ I didn’t try. Iirc the Noctilux has coma also. The 50mm could be used quite nicely to stitch several images together, at the max  8 seconds a series only takes  a few minutes to shoot. Alternatively, I’ve put the camera on continuous, cable release locked and set the camera to shoot until the battery exhausts to get star trails, the dark frame causes gaps that can be post processed out with effort.  The exposure hack in bulb was not consistent for my m240 body. 8 seconds at f1.4, iso 3200 worked well, requiring good Lightroom technique to get color in the core. Either Canon  or Nikon works better and the relatively cheap 14mm f2.8 Rokinon in either mount can be adapted to the Leica however exposure is very thin.  I haven’t tried the m10 but would expect better noise although the color might be limited similar to the M240.  I see a nice trail of lights in your shot, my results are similar and it’s almost impossible to get one without a streak somewhere. 

Thanks for your input Daryl! Shooting with the 50/1.4 went quite good for me too, allthough its of course a long lens for shooting the night sky. Havent tried stitching the images together though. Could be interesting.
I agree with you saying that the M10 handels the noise better. Thanks for the tip with the 14mm Rokinon, will read into that

vor 1 Stunde schrieb jankap:

What about stacking to get more light? You know the  Photopills.app? Streaks, there are too many blinking airplanes and light reflecting satellites in the sky. Meteors would be ok.

I downloaded Photopill today actually (so one day too late :P). Great App. How do you mean stacking in order to get more light? you mean more light in the foreground?

[jankap]

I don´t find it any more in my laptop. Please look for DeepSkyStacker.

You take a number of exposures of the Milky Way (for instance) from the same position (tripod) and the same direction. These pictures you feed into the app. On one of the pictures you select the foreground and start the app. The app looks in the pictures for the selected area and ignores this area. The rest of the areas of all pictures is moved to fit and are all added.

[marchyman]

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12 hours ago, SpriteSir said:

1. "Hack" the Exposure Limit in Bulb Mode (saw the Instruction here. It lets you do exposure till 60sec with high ISO)

 

I am not aware of this "hack" and did not find anything specific in a search.   Can you please provide a link?

[SpriteSir]

vor 15 Stunden schrieb jankap:

I don´t find it any more in my laptop. Please look for DeepSkyStacker.

You take a number of exposures of the Milky Way (for instance) from the same position (tripod) and the same direction. These pictures you feed into the app. On one of the pictures you select the foreground and start the app. The app looks in the pictures for the selected area and ignores this area. The rest of the areas of all pictures is moved to fit and are all added.

Thank you very much for your explanation. I read into it and it sounds really interesting. Will try it the next time definitely.

 

vor 10 Stunden schrieb marchyman:

 

I am not aware of this "hack" and did not find anything specific in a search.   Can you please provide a link?

At the moment i can't find it actually. But it works like that:

1. Use Bulb-Mode
2. Use Continous Shooting Mode
3. Set the ISO to the ISO you want to do the long exposure with
4. Take a picture with a fast exposure (it doesnt matter, you just need that test picture)
5. Now set the ISO to Automatic and change in the setting to "ISO like previous picture"
6. Now you can take Bulp picture with holding the shutter release- up to 60sec even with high ISO

Best Greetings