Featured Image: @WildFlyProductions
The Neowise Comet (C/2020 F3) has been a fixation lately of photographers around the globe. Rarely to comets pass by close enough to see with the naked eye, and Neowise has certainly shone brightly. The comet was only discovered recently, March 27, 2020, to be exact, and will pass out of our view later this month. With the comet being so easy to photograph with a normal DSLR camera, we decided to pick the brains of our favorite photographers about how they captured their images of the comet streaking through the sky.
Scottie of @WildFlyProductions:
“As we were getting off the river, we ran into some folks who asked us if we were staying to see the “Neowise comet”. At the time, we had no idea there was gonna be a comet. But, after learning that it wouldn’t reappear for over 6,700 years, we figured it would be a crime if we didn’t stick around. We stepped out to the river as the sun began to set, the sky lit up and BOOM there it was. As we watched, my buddy Scott mentioned, “dude let’s get a long exposure shot of this” so I ran back to the truck and snagged my camera. Before this, my experience with astrophotography was VERY limited. I had a general understanding of how it was done but I had only really tried it once, maybe twice before. Now there was a comet flying across the sky right in front of us so I had no choice but to figure it out. I snapped a few shots to test out my settings and they either came out too blurry, too dark or out of focus. Finally, I got it dialed. I had my camera on a tripod with a 24-105 f/4 lens (not my lens of choice for this but it’s what I had on me). I was shooting a 30-second exposure with my aperture at f/4 and my iso around 800. The shots looked good but they were still a bit out of focus. I adjusted focus to just below infinity and finally, we were in business. After a few clean shots of the comet, we convinced our buddy Coleson to wade out to the middle and get in the shot. At this point, it was pitch black so we used a flashlight to shine on him from the bank so he would light up in the photo. Then we had him hold as still as possible for 30 seconds while the camera took the photo. We took 3 shots while he was out there, one of which ended up being this image. I did some tweaking in Lightroom to really make the stars pop and BOOM. We had our final images. It was a team effort to get these shots and we were so fortunate to have met the folks who told us about it. What an amazing thing to see!”
Scottie’s Camera Settings:
Lens: 24mm-105mm F/4.0
Aperture: F/4.0
Exposure: 30 sec
ISO: 800
David Tejedor Royo (@DavidPikeFly)
David Tejedor Royo’s Camera Settings:
Camera: Sony A7 RIII
Aperture: F/2.8
Exposure: 5 sec
ISO: 5000
Kenneth LeRose (@KRL_Photo)
Brier Kelly (@Brier_Kelly)
Ryan Kelly (@GreenRiverFlyFisher)
Ryan’s Settings: F 3.5, ISO 800, 30 sec exposure. Speed light flash to capture the line.
