Astrophotography – The ‘500 Rule’ Chart

Can you help? If you find this helpful, please consider making a small donation to support human-generated content and keep this site free to all. Thanks! - Dan

Share with your friends!

Sometimes we want star trails and sometimes we don’t. What’s the longest exposure you can use before you start to get a star trail? That depends on your sensor size and the focal length of your lens! This handy chart gives you the answer using the generally accepted ‘500 rule’. 500/(your focal length in 35mm terms).

For a more in-depth discussion on this topic, please read this article HERE.

The-500-rule

Was This Post Helpful?

If you found this post helpful, please consider supporting a real person delivering human-generated content. In a world full of inaccurate AI-generated garbage, I strive to continue bringing valuable, real-world content. Help me fight the machines with a small donation here.

Photo of author

Dan Carr

Professional photographer based in Yukon, Canada, and founder of Shutter Muse. His editorial work has been featured in publications all over the world, and his commercial clients include brands such as Nike, Apple, Adobe and Red Bull.

Gura Gear Kiboko City Classic 18L – The Perfect Camera Bag

Gura Gear Kiboko City Classic 18L – The Perfect Camera Bag

The Gura Gear Kiboko City Classic 18L is a new do-it-all, compact camera bag made from rugged, ultralight sailcloth.

What’s the Best All-In-One Tripod Head for Wildlife and Landscapes?

What’s the Best All-In-One Tripod Head for Wildlife and Landscapes?

If you can only have one, which is the best tripod head for a wide variety of photographic genres, from wildlife to landscape and travel?

You may like

2 thoughts on “Astrophotography – The ‘500 Rule’ Chart”

    • I’m sorry you are unhappy with the experience for receiving your free chart. Unfortunately it’s very hard to send things to people without them ending up in the spam folder, and there’s little we can do about that. All of the data in the chart is also provided on this page, so in the event that it takes a few minutes to arrive, we suggest that people refer to this page. The system which we pay for to deliver these files does do it almost instantaneously, but sadly at that point we are at the mercy of the email services. I’m sorry you had a poor experience retrieving your’s.

      Reply

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published or shared. Comments that use abusive langugage, fake email addresses and fake names will be marked as spam. Please note that if you include a link in your comment, it will need to be moderated before it appears on the site. Required fields are marked*

By submitting a comment this form also collects your name, email and IP address so that we can prevent spam. For more info check our privacy policy.