Art of Spectrum: Introduction to Light Pollution Filters

We always heard about light pollution filters for starry sky photographing. People who live in urban areas always suffer from light pollution when they look at the night sky. However, there are various kinds of filters in the market. Are they effective in filtering light pollution? How should we choose when most brands launch several different models of filters?

What is the color of the Milky Way should be

We always see some beautiful milky way photos but maybe sometimes we will ask, why they look so different in colors? It is about the color temperature problem. Experienced photographers know that it is supposed to keep White Balance with the right settings to get photos with rich colors and look like the real world. You have to tell the camera what is black and what is white. Color temperature is easy to change with the change of light. If you go under the sun, the color is warm. If you go into shadows the color also becomes cold. Without […]

4K shooting, a new possibility for lightweight planetary photography?

Planetary and moon photography always about stacking. Atmospheric disturbances can affect the stability of images at great distances. Also, most of the cameras used for planetary photography have smaller sensor formats with high pixel density. The signal-to-noise ratio is always insufficient. The current mainstream practice is the use of specialized Astro cooling cameras connected to the computer, shooting thousands of frames of AVI files, and then stacked them with software. However, computers and equatorial instruments are not the equipment that you bring out every day. Also, it is a bit too tiring to set up a telescope, equatorial mount, and […]

Finally comes: STC-Optics Astro-MultiSpectra Clip Filter for Olympus M4/3

(Article updated in May 2021) The epidemic in 2020 brought great changes to the world. At the same time, the weather and atmospheric conditions were quite well because of the reduction of industrial activities. In 2020, I got many chances to photograph the Milky Way, especially in the urban area of Macau, even with seriously light pollution. I accomplished the missions with M4/3 cameras and the STC-Optics Astro-Multispectra filter, that I want to introduce now. I bought it and test it out immediately after the Taiwanese optics manufacturer STC-Optics launched the Olympus M4/3 clip filter. […]