Stand out under the stars: 6 expert astrophotography tips from night sky specialist Radoslav Sviretsov

Few types of photography span such an extreme range of lenses as astrophotography. The night sky can be captured with everything from fisheyes for sweeping starscapes right through to telescopes used for deep-sky imaging. Yet despite those extremes, astrophotography is also one of the most accessible genres.

In fact, a mirrorless camera, a wide-angle lens and a tripod are all you need to get started in night sky photography – no telescope, tracking mount or specialist kit required.

This simple approach is how Iceland-based landscape photographer Radoslav Sviretsov captures his star-filled scenes. His distinctive images combine strong foreground elements with a backdrop of epic stars and the Milky Way.

Radoslav began photography at the age of 15, initially drawn to landscapes but with a strong interest in capturing the night sky. He learned as much as he could, particularly about post-processing astro images, which he says is very different from working with landscapes.

He went on to study architecture at university and says his knowledge about photography has helped inform his architectural work – and vice versa. “When I was studying architecture, I was always thinking about the perspective and composition I use in my photography. When I’m making images, I think in architectural terms, so everything needs to be balanced and in exactly the right place. Architecture and photography support each other.”

Foreground details matter most to him and are what make his work stand out. “The night sky is always the same,” he says. “It would take maybe thousands of years to capture changes in it. So the way to make a photo different is through the foreground. Using perspective to get close to an object and make it stand out, shooting through trees, adding a human element – these things make the scene more interesting.

“If you’re looking only into deep space, you’ll see some nice stars, some part of the Milky Way. But when you add a human presence, or something else closer to us, it makes a big difference.”

With its ultra-compact, ultra-wide design and its ultra-fast f/1.4 aperture, the RF 14mm F1.4L VCM is a highly practical choice for landscapes and astrophotography. But it’s the lens’s uncompromising image quality that continues to impress long after the shot is taken.

Consistently high edge-to-edge performance – even when the lens is used wide open at f/1.4 – is achieved through a cutting-edge optical design incorporating GMo aspherical lens elements to suppress sagittal coma flare, ensuring pinpoint stars across the frame. Chromatic aberrations are minimised through the use of Fluorite, more commonly found in professional super-telephoto lenses, along with UD and BR elements. SWC and ASC coatings further ensure that ghosting and flare are effectively suppressed.

Radoslav explains that this consistent sharpness across the frame has opened up new possibilities for shooting wide open, allowing faster shutter speeds that freeze the movement of stars without having to increase ISO. “With my previous lens I would often have to stop down to around f/3.5, but with the RF 14mm F1.4L VCM I wasn’t afraid to shoot at f/1.4,” he says. “There’s almost no distortion and no coma. If you apply Canon’s digital lens corrections for the RF 14mm F1.4L VCM when processing an image [using Digital Photo Professional software], everything is perfect.”

Radoslav usually relies on his trusted Canon EOS R for astrophotography, but for the Madeira shoot he paired the RF 14mm F1.4L VCM with a Canon EOS R5 Mark II. “They’re made to be together,” he enthuses, adding that the combination of the higher-resolution sensor and advanced lens “worked perfectly”.

“The images are incredibly sharp,” he says, noting that the extra resolution also provides greater flexibility when cropping. “It’s great to have the option to adjust the frame if you want to. I always aim to get my compositions right in-camera, but if I do need to crop later, I know image quality won’t suffer because the EOS R5 Mark II has so many megapixels. It was really good to use the lens on that specific body.”

Astrophotography is a combination of technical control and artistic craft but, with most of us having access to the night sky, far more achievable than it might first appear. Get as far from light pollution as you can, and you’ll be rewarded with timeless views that have inspired the creative community for generations. Here, Radoslav shares practical night sky photography tips to help you take full advantage of every opportunity with a wide-angle lens.

A spontaneous night-sky photo session can be rewarding, but setting up a shot during the day allows you to refine your framing. “You should start planning your shots much earlier using a map on your computer,” Radoslav suggests. “Get to your location in daylight and use that time to find the perfect position for your camera.”

To do this, Radoslav uses a smartphone app that shows the exact position of the Milky Way five or six hours ahead of time. I know precisely where to put my tripod, so I save time and know what to expect – there are no surprises.”

“I shoot the landscape in the blue hour of twilight because I don’t want really strong light on the foreground,” Radoslav says. “I want everything in the photo to appear as though it was shot at the same time. The blue hour provides super-soft light with no hard shadows, making it easier to blend the sky and foreground later.”

“I make as much as I can of the blue hour, as it’s the key part of the image for making it interesting and different. This limited window, maybe 30-40 minutes, is crucial. Since I’ve already checked the specific position of the Milky Way for that composition, later at night I can simply stand in one spot, waiting for the stars to align perfectly.”

This approach naturally leads to a technique he often uses to keep both foreground and stars sharp – the two-shot method.

The best astrophotography lenses have large maximum apertures, capturing more light so you can use faster shutter speeds to reduce or eliminate star trails and keep the ISO relatively low for cleaner images. This is why the fast RF 14mm F1.4L VCM is ideal for night sky photography. So how does Radoslav maintain sharpness from near objects to distant stars when using a large aperture such as f/1.4 to shoot the sky?

“It’s a big trick,” he says. “If there’s an object very close to the camera, I usually close the aperture to around f/8 to capture the foreground in sharp detail without having to use focus stacking. Then I wait until it’s dark and shoot the Milky Way from the same position with the aperture wide open, combining both images later.”

This is a popular technique in astrophotography, Radoslav explains. “If the foreground is further away – for example, clouds or fog over distant rocks – I’ll just make a single shot at infinity focus using the maximum aperture, and everything comes out perfectly.”

One of the most important tips Radoslav offers photographers taking their first steps in astrophotography might be a surprising one: take your camera’s resolution into account when setting the shutter speed.

“If you want the stars to appear as sharp points rather than trails caused by the Earth’s rotation, the key is knowing the maximum exposure time you can use with your lens,” he explains. This is the basis of the 500 Rule in astrophotography – divide 500 by the effective focal length of your lens to calculate the longest shutter speed, in seconds, that will keep the stars sharp.

For example, with the RF 14mm F1.4L VCM, the 500 Rule suggests keeping exposures to about 36 seconds (500 ÷ 14) to prevent star trails.

“It’s not an exact science, because the sensor’s megapixels also play an important role,” he says. “The maximum shutter speed you can use without star trails will differ between, say, a 24MP and a 45MP camera, even with the same lens.

“The easiest way around this is to use one of the many astrophotography calculators available online or in apps,” Radoslav adds. “Simply enter your camera model and lens focal length, and it will give you the maximum shutter speed.”

In astrophotography, star stacking is a post-processing technique used to create cleaner, more detailed images of the night sky. Rather than relying on a single long exposure – which isn’t always practical – you take a series of shorter exposures in quick succession. These frames are then aligned and combined using star-stacking software. This process reduces random noise, resulting in a higher-quality final image with finer detail.

Canon’s Digital Photo Professional software also offers a subscription-based Neural Network Image Processing Tool, which can improve image quality without traditional stacking. Using AI with deep learning, it analyses images captured on compatible cameras to significantly reduce noise while preserving important detail.

“I always take ten shots for the sky in case I need to stack them,” Radoslav says. Some EOS R System cameras, including the EOS R5 Mark II that Radoslav was using on Madeira, feature a built-in interval timer that simplifies the process of recording a sequence of shots. A remote control with an intervalometer, such as the Timer Remote Controller TC-80N3, is another option – although Radoslav says he often just takes the ten shots manually via the camera’s Vari-angle touchscreen.

“I have had no problem just using my finger to take the photos one by one. You just need to make sure there isn’t a big gap between the photos, because then there could be a gap between the stars themselves. I leave maybe one or two seconds at most.”

Radoslav used Digital Photo Professional to process the RAW files from his Madeira shoot, applying the Digital Lens Optimizer (DLO) profile for the RF 14mm F1.4L VCM to achieve optimal performance from the lens.

He suggests taking advantage of the automated tools in Adobe® Photoshop®¹ when blending night sky and foreground images. The latest Sky Replacement feature, he says, makes improving the transition between the two elements quick and straightforward: “It’s really fast and reliable and you have plenty of adjustments.”

You may still need to take a more manual approach to some areas. “Sometimes the sky doesn’t blend perfectly around the edges of rocks or grass, so you need to tidy it up by hand using brushes and masks – but that’s rare,” he adds. “This is particularly true if the foreground was shot using a long shutter speed and some parts are blurred. You might need to remove those areas.”

When he has ten images of the night sky, Radoslav uses dedicated star-stacking software to align them before blending them with the foreground. “First, I make small adjustments to the RAW files, including lens corrections, so they match exactly. I then save them as TIFFs before running them through the stacking software.

“If the images show only the sky, the software handles everything. If the foreground is visible in each shot, you can choose to freeze this area – otherwise it can become blurred due to the Earth’s rotation.”