PoppieJ Loc: North Georgia

I am going on a night sky photography workshop. I just wanted to ask you all what is the best lens to use. I will be able to rent from Borrowlenses or lensrental to get what I need as my current wide angle only stops down to f4. I shoot canon so that has to be considered as some glass will not work without adapters that I do not want to use.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

What does the workshop guy recommend?

tradio Loc: Oxford, Ohio

I'm happy with my Sigma 24 ART.

ELNikkor

Nikon 20 1.8

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Do they have adapters for his Canon?

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

If you're going to rent a lens for the shoot, consider the Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L III or the Canon EF 14mm f/2.8L II.

alberio Loc: Casa Grande AZ

The Rokinon 14mm f2.8 works nicely for Milky Way/nightscapes. If you are wanting anything to capture nebula, galaxies, planets you should consider a telescope. You can get some larger brighter nebula with a camera lens, but it gets much more difficult without a accurate tracking mount.

par4fore Loc: Bay Shore N.Y.

Wide angle with a hard stop at infinity.

1CanonGuy Loc: Texas

If you are shooting nite time city Pictures I use 50mm or 85mm, and if taking pictures of the Milky Way same lenses at f4 to f8. And make use Of a slow shutter speed.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

Yes, what does the workshop instructor suggest for your camera brand. You'll want a fast WA Prime Lens, say f/1.2 to f/2. What model Canon camera are you talking about? Since you are renting, price for WA should not be a limit I would think.

I found that these exist and might do the job. You did say "best" and Wide Angle.

Canon EF 24mm f/1.4L II USM
Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L II USM
Canon EF 35mm f/2 IS USM
Sigma 14mm f/1.8 DG HSM | Art
Sigma 20mm f/1.4 DG HSM | Art
Sigma 35mm f/1.4 DG HSM | Art
Tamron SP 35mm f/1.8 Di VC USD
Zeiss Milvus 2/35mm

For "Normal" 50mm Primes lens for Canon FF cameras there are

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM
Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM
Canon EF 50mm f/1.2L USM
Sigma 50mm f/1.4 DG HSM / ART
Zeiss 50mm f/1.4 Milvus ZE

In use you will probably still have to stop these down to f/2 or f/2.8 or even f/4.

Good luck. Hope you get some great images.

PoppieJ Loc: North Georgia

thanks for the replies. The workshop instructor does not really recommend any particular lens. Just says wide angle, faster the better, but will work with whatever people bring. I have a 24-70 f4 but was wanting to get a faster, wider or both lens to take with me. I had heard good things about the Rokinon but they are not as available to rent as some of the more expensive lenses. I am worried about coma as well as barrel distortion that comes with the ultra wide angle, but don't have any real experience with the ultra wide angle.

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

I have participated in two night sky workshops led by different instructors and following somewhat different philosophies and approaches. At both workshops, the preferred arrangement was a 14-24mm f/2.8 wide angle lens on a full frame body of recent enough vintage to be able to work comfortably at ISO 4,000. A friend who accompanied me to the most recent one got pretty good results with a new AF-P Nikkor 10-20mm DX lens on a D500, but he had to work a little bit harder because of its f/4.5-f/5.6 aperture range. The loss of that 1.5 stops at the wide end made him deeply reliant on reaching down into the dynamic range capability of his camera. The biggest immediate problem was not being able to generate a visible review image on his LCD screen.

I don't see that you tell us what camera you are using. It can make a difference.

You can make just about any focal length work if you are willing to deal with increasingly complex panoramas, but lenses slower than f/2.8 can be really painful. Longer lenses need to be faster, because your longest shutter speed is going to be 500/focal length. That's whether you are shooting full frame or DX or any other format. Extremely high resolution sensors will cause you to want to shorten your exposures closer to 300/focal length.

The reason that it is preferred to get to 14mm is that focal length, in portrait mode on a full frame camera, will allow capture of a reasonable amount of the foreground landscape while extending to within 15 or 20 degrees of straight overhead. This time of year, that gets really important when the time gets to midnight or past. And you need a lens with limited vignetting in the corners and no more than a reasonable amount of distortion in order to avoid big problems when assembling your panoramas.

Please be careful following advice from folks who from their comments clearly have never done a successful Milky Way image.

alberio Loc: Casa Grande AZ

This was my first Milky Way shot with the Rokinon. I rested my camera on a lava rock wall on Maunakea in Hawaii.

(Download)

PoppieJ Loc: North Georgia

thanks Larry for the reply. Makes sense. I am using a canon 6d, and while I have done some night photography, I seldom ever have done any starry sky shots where I have had any foreground

PoppieJ Loc: North Georgia

good detail in the picture. that is a good recommendation for the Rokinon lens