Image via chrisburkard/Instagram

If you love surfing and adventures, you probably already follow Chris on Instagram. His photos of landscape and distant locations are always different from what’s everybody else is doing. Definitely will take your breath away!

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Getting a good ‘Astro’ photograph in one single frame takes some patience & practice. It may be one of the hardest things to photograph because of the fact that it’s all happening at night. It’s typically cold, dark & sometimes you’re fumbling with equipment while wearing thick gloves. Unless you know the landscape or shoot location well it can also feel very foreign at night. With practice it all gets easier. If there is a few pieces of advice I can offer to dramatically improve your astrophography ‘in-camera’ it would be. . 1 ) Use the best lenses you can. This is one aspect of photography where the equipment makes a huge difference. Try to get a wide angle prime (something between 15-35mm) that has a minimum opening of F2.8 or lower. These lenses are sharper, focus easier at night & let in way more light. 2) Don’t be afraid of a high ISO. People often think that by shooting a lower ISO they are preserving the quality of the image even if though the photo comes out dark. Trying to bring a photo back to life in Lightroom or during Post processing always brings out a lot of noise & artifacts that typically wouldn’t be there if you just shot a bit higher ISO and tried to get the correct exposure in camera. 3) Your lens MM controls your Star movement. If you are after tack sharp stars with no movement (like the image above) or blurring then you will want to understand this simple concept. The ‘Wider’ the lens the slower the shutter speed you can have without star blurring, the tighter or more compressed your lens, the faster the shutter will have to be. A quick rule of thumb follows : 15mm lens up to ~ 25s shutter. 20mm up to ~ 15s shutter. 24mm up to 10-12s shutter. This calls for experimentation but it’s important to realize that even changing your lens MM by just a tiny bit will force you to adjust shutter speed/ ISO. . Happy shooting and remember that’s its always supposed to be fun! 📷💥 . I shot this with @sonyalpha A7Sii & @sigmaphoto 20mm f1.8 lens @gitzoinspires traveler tripod

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