What compact camera works best for photographing stars and bioluminescence from a moving ship at night?
Asked 1/30/2018
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I’m looking for a small camera my son can stow easily while serving at sea. He wants to photograph stars and ocean bioluminescence at night from a ship. He may be able to use a tripod, but the ship itself will still be moving, so long exposures may not be practical. He’s a novice, so I’m trying to understand whether a compact stills camera is a better choice than relying on 4K video, and what type of camera or features would help most in this situation.
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
8y ago
2 Answers
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Your intuition is correct. The tripod will not help much since there will be movement, so you cannot use slow shutter-speed. That means that he will have to resort to high-ISO and a large aperture. The larger the sensor in the camera, the better the results will be. Small sensor cameras have too much noise to discern stars when shooting at high ISO. For this reason, something like a Sony RX1R II would be one of the better choices. It is relatively compact and weighs about a pound (including the lens obviously), a Fuji X100F is only a tiny bit lighter. While limited in availability, he can probably use a Ricoh GR II but it does not quite match the quality of the others, although it weighs half as much.
Originally by user1620. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user1620
8y ago
0
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A tripod won’t solve the main problem here because the ship is moving, so long exposures for night scenes are unlikely to stay sharp. For this kind of shooting, the priority is a camera that can use a relatively fast shutter speed, wide aperture, and high ISO with the least noise possible.
That points to a compact camera with the largest sensor you can reasonably get. Small-sensor point-and-shoots usually get noisy too quickly for stars and very dark scenes. In the answers given, larger-sensor compact options like the Sony RX1R II or Fujifilm X100F were suggested as stronger choices, with the Ricoh GR II mentioned as a smaller, lighter alternative but with somewhat lower image quality.
If motion is still a problem, a gimbal may help reduce some blur, but it won’t fully overcome ship movement in very dark conditions. For a novice, good results are possible, but expectations should be realistic: stars and bioluminescence from a moving ship are challenging subjects. Prioritize still-image quality and low-light performance over 4K video specs.
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