Stargazing In Fuerteventura, The Canary Islands

This is a very quick post! I just found these photos from our trip to Fuerteventura where we had a little challenge of trying to photograph the night sky.

Seeing as I’d already done Northern Lights photography a couple of times, I was pretty sure this was gonna be a walk in the park. Surely it was the same kinda thing.

Except I had just bought a new camera (it wasn’t even that new, I’d had it for a few months by that point). I’d also never really tried to photograph the sky at night – given the light pollution in Central London, where I live, its probably easy to understand why.

Anyway, we returned to the colourful mountains where we’d been earlier in the day (see below) and with no houses for miles, it seemed like a pretty perfect opportunity to try it out.

As it turns out, the same principles kinda apply for Northern Light photography but it’s so not the same thing.

I’ve got the tips for Northern Lights photography if you’re interested – along with some for general night time photography).

Generally, switch your camera to manual instead of auto and go for a combo of the following 3 settings:

1.) Lowest F stop on your camera (the lower the F-stop value, the more light your camera allows in e.g. f/1.2 will allow a lot more light than f/8).

2.) Low ISO (100 – 400, perhaps). If you go too high, the photo ends up really grainy (i.e. noisy).

3.) Longest exposure possible. Most cameras can do up to 30 seconds without you touching it. If you want any longer (e.g. 120 seconds can turn out quite great Northern Lights photos), you need to go to bulb mode – bulb mode lets you do it as long as you want but you do have to hold the shutter down, hence why you need a remote for bulb mode. You do need a tripod for this though.

Anyway, long story short – here are some of the photos from my night time photography session in Fuerteventura.

I’ve gotta admit, I’m not one for photographing the stars at home (it kinda reminds me of flower photography – the go-to photos for anyone who’s just bought a new camera) but after our time in Fuerteventura, I’m a total convert and have a new-found appreciation for how beautiful the night sky can be. There’s still room for improvement of course (editing the photos for one – this edit on them is an older one) but that’s one challenge I’m very happy to take on.