Vent: I was using too much exposure in my nebula shots for years

I always thought you needed crazy long exposures to get those bright, colorful nebula photos everyone posts here. Last month I was at a dark sky event in Sedona and a guy next to me had a 10 minute setup, same gear as me basically (a modded DSLR and a small refractor). He showed me his raw single frame and it looked really dim and flat, totally unlike my overexposed mess. I finally got it - I was blowing out the core details and losing all the fine dust lanes around the edges. Now I stack more shorter exposures instead of going for one long one, and the detail I'm pulling out is way better. Has anyone else had that moment where you realized you were fighting your own settings the whole time?

3 comments

3 Comments

ray_martinez821mo ago

Yeah I had that exact same realization last year. Switching to shorter subs was a game changer.

mark4361mo ago

Game changer? That's a bit much, it's just a subscription.

betty_kelly91mo ago

Ugh @ray_martinez82 hit it on the head. Same here - blew out so many shots before someone at a meetup showed me what a properly exposed sub looked like. Felt like such a rookie moment 😅