Photography skills and methods of space station

I believe there are many celestial photography enthusiasts among us, such as equatorial telescope, light pollution filter, frozen CCD and low-light CCD, and all kinds of supporting equipment emerge one after another, and the related technologies are quite mature, but there is one experience that most people don't have: taking pictures in space.

American NASA astronaut Don? Petit took many beautiful photos during his mission in the space station. Recently, he shared his eight shooting experiences in the space station with the public. Although it is unlikely that we will fly into space to take photos now, and the skills introduced in this article may not be used, but what if? ...

1. Don't shake.

Keep it steady, slow down your heartbeat, and avoid shaking hands and blurring your photos. In this matter, space and the ground seem to have gone to two extremes. On the ground, a 400 mm? The F/2.8 lens is too long and too heavy, so it should be placed on a tripod to keep it stable. However, in zero gravity environment, no matter how heavy the lens is, it will become very light, and the heartbeat may lead to jitter and blur.

2. Love it and be patient

Shoot what you are interested in. The space station often uses telephoto lens for outdoor shooting. The space station flies in space at a speed of 7.7km/s, and wonderful pictures often pass by. Many times, in order to take a photo that others think is inconspicuous, you even have to go back and forth several times to take it well. There are too many subjects in space: the earth, stars, aurora and noctilucent clouds. Only by focusing on the subject you love can you be patient.

Sometimes, perfection does not exist.

In space, focusing and exposure will also affect the success of a photo. For example, the tricky aurora, in general, the brightness of the green part of the aurora is two steps higher than that of the red. If the green exposure is accurate, then you can't see the red aurora. If the red aurora exposure is accurate, the green will be overexposed. Sometimes, even if the technology is perfect, there is no guarantee to take perfect photos.

Try fisheye lens

Don't be afraid of wide-angle lenses. The space in the space station is small, and the wide-angle lens can accommodate more content, which is an excellent match for shooting. For example, to take photos of the dome, I (refer to Don? Pettit, the same below) will be shot with 16mm fisheye lens.

Control glare

The window glass in the space station has been treated with various antireflection films, but the actual effect is not as magical as the legend, and glare will still occur. In addition to keeping the camera as close to the window glass as possible, the clever astronauts also invented a simple and easy control method, which we call "witch hat". The so-called "witch hat" is actually a dark curtain, which is used to separate the porthole from the space capsule when taking pictures to prevent the light in the capsule from reflecting on the glass.

6. The exposure time of the star orbit does not need to be too long.

Trying to shoot long-exposure works on the space station is actually very interesting, which is different from the experience on the ground. Just put the camera on the bracket, point the lens out of the window and extend the exposure time. Moreover, due to the rapid movement of the space station, you can use the aperture of f/ 1.2 and f/ 1.4 with low sensitivity, and you can shoot wonderful star-orbit works in a short time.

7. Direct hot rolling

Try different exposure combinations to balance the brightness of foreground and background. I often use this method when shooting night scenes of cities. First accurately expose the background starry sky, then the earth, and then the foreground of the space station. All the work should be finished soon. Finally, we can use HDR for post-correction to ensure the correct exposure of foreground and background.

8. Pay attention to backup

All materials in the space station are limited, including the hard disk. If we can take photos, we will definitely use hard disk to store them, so sometimes we will compress the photos very small, on the one hand, in order to improve the transmission rate.

But the problem is coming. In order to save space, not choosing the RAW format is likely to cause irreparable losses. If you compress a JPEG photo to the size of 1024×683, and then accidentally save it and close it, it will always be so big that you can't see the big picture. After careful consideration, it is recommended to save in a smaller RAWs format.