I remember wanting to try photographing the starry sky a long time ago, but I never had the equipment. Previously, I only knew that DSLRs could capture the stars; therefore, my long-standing plan was to buy a DSLR once I had the money. For various reasons, I kept putting it off. Eventually, I began to feel that for someone like me with fleeting interests, a DSLR might not be very meaningful.
In the past two years, driven by Xiaomi’s promotion, Yi Action Cameras have gradually sparked a trend for action cameras in China. These cameras are characterized by being compact, flexible, and affordable (compared to DSLRs). Flexibility doesn’t just mean they are easy to carry, but also refers to functional flexibility. For example, the first-generation Yi camera even supported programmable shooting! (Writing scripts to control the shutter, ISO, shooting intervals, and implementing scheduled shooting, etc.) This naturally attracted me quickly. When the Yi 2nd generation was crowdfunding, I bit the bullet and bought one.
A few days ago, I returned home. It happened to be a clear night, so I immediately tested its performance in photographing the starry sky. Below is a shot taken from the roof of my house, using ISO 400 with a 30-second exposure:
From the perspective of an action camera, the results are quite acceptable; even the Milky Way is somewhat visible. The noise is a bit high, which is due to two reasons: one is the camera itself, and the other is that light pollution in rural areas is also becoming increasingly significant nowadays.
I look forward to capturing more things to share with everyone.