Opinion on Nikon lens for night photography: Hey guys! New kid on the block. I'm looking for opinions on using the Nikon 16-35 f/4G for night skies. Most of my day time shots are...

Colinus

Hey guys! New kid on the block. I'm looking for opinions on using the Nikon 16-35 f/4G for night skies. Most of my day time shots are landscape and I'm comfortable that this lens will serve me well. But, I've not been able to find much on its use for night photography and am looking for anyone with experience using this lens at night. Thanks for any and all help and I'm grateful for other info I've picked up while being a voyeur of this site. If curious, camera is D810.

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

Colinus wrote:

Hey guys! New kid on the block. I'm looking for opinions on using the Nikon 16-35 f/4G for night skies. Most of my day time shots are landscape and I'm comfortable that this lens will serve me well. But, I've not been able to find much on its use for night photography and am looking for anyone with experience using this lens at night. Thanks for any and all help and I'm grateful for other info I've picked up while being a voyeur of this site. If curious, camera is D810.

F/4 is probably the borderline of how slow a lens you want to use for night photography. Any slower and things get very noisy! The focal length sure is wide enough!

MT Shooter Loc: Montana

Colinus wrote:

Hey guys! New kid on the block. I'm looking for opinions on using the Nikon 16-35 f/4G for night skies. Most of my day time shots are landscape and I'm comfortable that this lens will serve me well. But, I've not been able to find much on its use for night photography and am looking for anyone with experience using this lens at night. Thanks for any and all help and I'm grateful for other info I've picked up while being a voyeur of this site. If curious, camera is D810.

I used it for several years, until the Tamron 15-30mm F2.8 VC came out, then bye bye to the F4. It just was nowhere near sharp enough anymore.

rmorrison1116 Loc: Near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania

Welcome to the forum. You failed to include where you are from so, without a general location there's no way of knowing if you are in an area subject to light pollution or not. f/4 is kind of pushing it for night sky shots unless it's really dark and you can go for longer exposure without the light pollution messing up your shot. The focal length is good for longer exposures without star trails. D810 will allow you to use higher ISO. Light pollution is the enemy...

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Look at the Rokinon/Samyang/Bower 14mm F2.8. Great little lens, sharper than a $2000 14-24, and only around $335 with a focus confirmation chip. Manual focus only.

mborn Loc: Massachusetts

Gene51 wrote:

Look at the Rokinon/Samyang/Bower 14mm F2.8. Great little lens, sharper than a $2000 14-24, and only around $335 with a focus confirmation chip. Manual focus only.

Also, the 24 mm f1.4 Rokinon is great more expensive $599 with chip

Stacked star trails with the 24 mm Rokinon o D810

(Download)

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Colinus wrote:

Hey guys! New kid on the block. I'm looking for opinions on using the Nikon 16-35 f/4G for night skies. Most of my day time shots are landscape and I'm comfortable that this lens will serve me well. But, I've not been able to find much on its use for night photography and am looking for anyone with experience using this lens at night. Thanks for any and all help and I'm grateful for other info I've picked up while being a voyeur of this site. If curious, camera is D810.

Night photography can be fun.

http://makezine.com/projects/how-to-capture-breathtaking-time-lapses-of-the-night-sky/
http://www.popphoto.com/how-to/2013/06/how-to-shoot-epic-landscape-photos-night-sky
http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-tips/night-sky/?sf4138099=1
http://iso.500px.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-astrophotographer-aaron-groen/?utm_campaign=nov132014digest&utm_content=CTAbutton_aaronjgroen_500pxProfilepage&utm_medium=email&utm_source=500px
http://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/tips-for-post-processing-your-constellation-photos/
http://petapixel.com/2014/01/29/picking-great-lens-milky-way-photography/
http://www.borrowlenses.com/blog/2013/05/the-best-lenses-for-night-photography-a-case-for-rokinon-primes/
http://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/star-trail-photography-tips/
http://photography.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to-set-up-your-digital-slr-for-night-photography--cms-24099

More links -

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=night%20photography&dlnr=1

joehel2 Loc: Cherry Hill, NJ

mborn wrote:

Also, the 24 mm f1.4 Rokinon is great more expensive $599 with chip

Beautiful photo, great ad for the Rokinon.

mborn Loc: Massachusetts

joehel2 wrote:

Beautiful photo, great ad for the Rokinon.

Thank You

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

Colinus wrote:

Hey guys! New kid on the block. I'm looking for opinions on using the Nikon 16-35 f/4G for night skies. Most of my day time shots are landscape and I'm comfortable that this lens will serve me well. But, I've not been able to find much on its use for night photography and am looking for anyone with experience using this lens at night. Thanks for any and all help and I'm grateful for other info I've picked up while being a voyeur of this site. If curious, camera is D810.

I use that lens and that body. But for night shots I am using the D500 at ISO 3200. I also use HDR and HDR software cause it seems to work for me.

Mac Loc: Pittsburgh, Philadelphia now Hernando Co. Fl.

The Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 20mm f/1.8G ED is a great lens for night sky photography.

wj cody Loc: springfield illinois

the noct-nikkor lens. specially constructed for night photography - 58mm f1:1.2, expensive but worth it.

DaveHam Loc: Reading UK

Are you planning on long exposures, star trails, that sort of thing, or on faster shots?

If the former you will probably be shooting in the area of F4 or F5.6, the latter as wide an aperture as you can get. For the long exposures your existing lens is very adequate, for the fast an F1.4 would be a good bet, maybe the 50mm?

MtnMan Loc: ID

Colinus wrote:

Hey guys! New kid on the block. I'm looking for opinions on using the Nikon 16-35 f/4G for night skies. Most of my day time shots are landscape and I'm comfortable that this lens will serve me well. But, I've not been able to find much on its use for night photography and am looking for anyone with experience using this lens at night. Thanks for any and all help and I'm grateful for other info I've picked up while being a voyeur of this site. If curious, camera is D810.

Works well on my D800...in light pollution free ID.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

Colinus wrote:

Hey guys! New kid on the block. I'm looking for opinions on using the Nikon 16-35 f/4G for night skies. Most of my day time shots are landscape and I'm comfortable that this lens will serve me well. But, I've not been able to find much on its use for night photography and am looking for anyone with experience using this lens at night. Thanks for any and all help and I'm grateful for other info I've picked up while being a voyeur of this site. If curious, camera is D810.

I'm rather old school and not even a Nikon user (though I have Nikon large format and enlarging lenses), but it really makes little difference to brands anyway, you can for much less $ find a used vintage Nikon prime 50mm f/1.4 or f/1.8 or f/2 lens or 35mm f/2 or f/2.8 lens that will keep your ISO practically down to daylight levels. And of course your D810 is a FX (FF) system, perspective = film F 24x36mm system.