Night Shots - question

[DWayne27]

so i played around with my camera this weekend and tried to get some cool shots of the stars out in the swell. i got some decent ones, but they are all turning out rather grainy. is there a way to have a good long exposure to get the stars and moon and still have it turn out sharp?

[CarpeyBiggs]

Do you care if the stars are in trails? Or do you want them to be points of light?

With trails, yes you can eliminate noise and grain. With points, you can't do it without a really nice camera, a fast lens, and some help from photoshop.

[DWayne27]

i wouldnt mind trails too much. i guess i was more wondering if i was missing something simple- doing something wrong.
how can i get a sharp image with trails?

[CarpeyBiggs]

One of the shortfalls of digital is that noise builds up during long exposures because the sensor starts to heat up.

A point of clarification: pictures can still be sharp, but have noise. If you want them to be sharp, you need good technique, like tripods, mirror lockup, etc...

If you want them to have less noise, you have to use tricks, like stacking exposures.

I made a few posts about his on another forum last week. Here's the link.

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/697177