Night Sky Photography in Capitol Reef National Park

I thought I would give night sky photography a try, especially since I travel to areas not far away that have great opportunities for interesting foregrounds along with having the required dark sky. This is just a quick post about a lens I tried, returned and the replacement. People with much more skill at this kind of shooting are out there and have made some very informative post. Several of the post suggested Ronikon/Samyang/Bower lenses for this kind of shooting. I use Nikon and Nikkor lenses but did not have a fast prime lens that would be appropriate. So, I purchased a Bower 24mm f1.4. That did not work out well… at all. VERY blurred images.

I returned it to B&H and purchased the Rokinon version, 24mm f/1.4. Big difference! Now I’ve read that Samyang’s quality control is not that great and that their lenses can vary a great deal in quality. It’s my understanding that they manufacture the lenses and market them under the 3 different names. Not sure what that’s about. The first lens I bought was the Bower and for “the same lens” it was about $100 cheaper than the Ronikon. Get what you pay for? or just quality control?

Here’s a link to an article about why this collection of lenses might be a better choice over the Nikkor/Canon versions if you’re considering a new lens for night sky photography.

http://intothenightphoto.blogspot.com/2013/02/overcoming-coma-aberration-part-2.html

Again, I’m just getting started in shooting this kind of work but thought I would post the comment in case someone else happens upon a bad lens. Don’t give up!

“Temple of the Sun” in Cathedral Valley, Utah. Yep…I need more practice on my night photo post processing but ya gotta start somewhere and since the sharpness of the lens and the resulting image was not great I decided not to spend much time on it.!