iamimdoc

I am overwhelmed with work and thus little time to prepare

Will be in very dark area in Texas on August 13 - a good nite for the Perseids

Cameras are Nikon D300
-Nikon 18-200 zoom slow
-manual old 100 mm 3.5 lens
-50 mm 1.8 lens

and

Sony Alpha 6400 - 18-50 lens - slow

Tripod
Remote shutter release

Any of this likely to be of use or is just going to be an exercise frustration ?

If any of this gear is useful, does the rule of 500 get adjusted to focal length for the lens or the 35 mm equivalent of the lens?

I'm looking for quick answers before I spend what little time I have trying to learn about things

Thanks for help

A dilettante

juan_uy Loc: Uruguay

Hi, I don't have experience with meteor showers, only with wide field milky way nightscapes.

Probably in the astro section you may get better help:
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/s-109-1.html

The 500 rules must be adjusted with the 35mm equivalent FL, and it is a bit deprecated for high res cameras. NPR rule is more exact (but will need an app or site to calculated it, I recommend Photopills)

It depends on how "slow" your 18mm lenses are, with f/3.5 for example you can get good milky way shots.

tjw47 Loc: Michigan

Meteors move ( fast ) in the sky.... All you need to worry about is star trails.

Canisdirus

Long exposures for meteors...the odds of you 'catching' a meteor with a quick click is...slight to none.
Want to enjoy yourself?
Make a cocktail...set up the camera and shoot video.

alberio Loc: Casa Grande AZ

If your exposures are correct for Milky Way, they will work for most bright meteors. The wider lenses will obviously increase your chance of capturing one or more. Higher ISO will tend to bring in lots more sky glow. You should be able to find a setting that suits your taste for the MW and then it's a matter of getting lucky. Where in West Texas?

BurghByrd Loc: Pittsburgh

I would prefer a wider lens but of these options I would choose the 50 mm f 1.8 lens. The slower lenes will force either very high ISO or very long exposures (i.e. ISO 32OO, f4, 8 s). Wide open try 5 sec at ~ ISO 800 on a tripod and if possible try to get some forground in your composition for perspective. Have a safe and enjoyable trip.

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

I just received an email from PhotoPills. They will be having a free online workshop around photographing the Perseids tomorrow at noon, central time. I've sat in on a couple of their online classes. Not the same as an in-person session in the field, but usually with a good bit of usable information. You just have to look past the promotion of their app. And...it's hard to beat the price. Check their website for details.

iamimdoc

Thanks for suggestions. Will be about 40 miles south if Marfa. Ought to be pretty dark.

The 50 mm fast lens seems like “most likely to succeed” solution

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

I am interested to see what strategy the PhotoPills folks (maybe just folk...I think it is really just one guy...) recommend.

How high an ISO are you comfortable using on your D300? I'm going to try to find a reasonably dark spot locally and will probably be using an ISO of 4000 for 30 seconds at a time hoping to get something useful. Keep in mind that the stars in the vicinity of Polaris move more slowly than those if we look straight east or west or overhead, so somewhat longer exposures can be tolerated. Do you think you can do 1200 or 2000? If you still have your eyepiece cap, be sure to have it available to protect against that one unexpected burst of flashlight coming from the back. If not, a small piece of black gaffer's tape or similar can substitute.

Rule #1 in that part of the world is to not put anything on the ground. Rule #2 is to not reach down and pick anything up off the ground. A lot of people worry about snakes, but I worry more about critters like scorpions and spiders (and cacti that you didn't see earlier). The rule before Rule #1 is to take someone with you to help watch out for hazards. It can get pretty chilly at night. At least a long sleeve shirt and probably some sort of jacket will serve you well. Boots are good if you can manage it.

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

Just wondered if you had a chance to watch the Perseids class. The instructor turned out to be Ian Norman, who apparently lives in Chicago and has a website called lonelyspeck.com. If you missed it, it will probably be available on YouTube through the PhotoPills site.

His approach is to use numerous exposures of 20-30 seconds at the widest available aperture and ISO between 3200 and 6400. You will need to save your images as raw, and expect to need to combine multiple images. Quite a bit if work to get the images we are accustomed to seeing.

The "radian point" or point of origin for the meteors will be just to the right of the north star, but the meteors may be vsible anywhere in the northern sky.

It looks like the peak time will be the evening of the 11th going into the 12th. You will have the advantage of a later moonrise...probably around 2 AM.

SteveR Loc: Michigan

Took a meteor shower once. Broke an arm.