Astronaut Chris Hadfield: how to take photos from the ISS

By [NR] admin | Published: April 22, 2013

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In this just released video, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield explains how he takes pictures from the International Space Station:

You can find Chris Hadfield's images on Twitter. Previous NASA & Nikon related stories can be found here.

Related posts:

  1. Nikon gear at the ISS
  2. Nikon in space: new NightPod intelligent tripod compensates for motion when taking images from space
  3. New images from space captured with Nikon D3S
  4. Nikon gear in space
  5. Guest post: water photography by Chris Burkard
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  • Zhorn

    Pretty smpathic guy using pretty sympathic makin pretty sympathic pictures

    • Zhorn

      Sorry…… Pretty smpathic guy using pretty sympathic gear makin pretty sympathic pictures

      • No

        sympathetic?

        • Should be. It’s Greek (sympatheticos).

          • actually it’s also french (but with greek roots) sympathique ! But yea.. he’s very canadian 🙂

      • preston

        Haha, gotta love trying to correct yourself by saying the exact same thing. I english is your second language, that’s fine. By the way, I assume you mean ‘simple’.

        • John Ritchie

          There is a difference, the word ‘gear’.

        • John Ritchie

          Oh the burden of …

  • Very nice video and superb pictures. However, the problem is not how to get the pictures, it is how to get to the ISS.

  • Wouldn’t it be awesome if Nikon could build in an anti-gravity device in its big lenses – loved how the camera just floated there with the 400mm on it.

  • Rene

    Nice. Even nicer is that completely coincidentally I just registered for a 4 hour presentation by Andre Kuipers, a Dutch astronaut, about pretty much the same subject. Really looking forward to that!

  • OMG, he said “hunter”. Boycott!! Boycott!!

    • Nokin_D800

      Calm down, he said “hunter”, not “Canon”.

  • Rui Nelson Carneiro

    There’s a market where Nikon dominates: ISS

  • mimentum

    I’d like to know if the glass has been modified at all?

  • Scott Kelby always said “if you want great landscape photos you have to travel to get there….”

  • alvin

    as they say…location.. location ..location…

  • What I just wonder, is… How to they get rid of all the spots that you see on the glass of the coupole…Furthermore he said he was working at F/16… Must be funny to target between those spots, and even funnier to post treat those…
    However, nice video and nice pics!!!

    • Micah Goldstein

      Close down to f16 and shoot a long lens through a window screen. It works just fine. Sure it impacts image quality, but they aren’t likely to just open a window for a picture.

      So in short, try it and see what happens! Be sure you’re using long glass though.

  • Aldo

    massive 10mb files 😛

    • LeGO

      The ISS would get better photos using a D800E coupled with some superlative optics. I am surprised that he is using /16.0 as not only would DOF not be a concern at this distance, f/16.0 would also mean shooting well within the lens diffraction zone even when using lower-resolution cameras.

      • Aldo

        oh yeah… but I think they are waiting on the “true” d700 replacement lol

      • Micah Goldstein

        Several things: they don’t bring new cameras up very often. And they certainly don’t bring untested gear up.

        That was a D3s F16 is just fine for the most part, especially with the lenses used.

        The thing about diffraction: yes, it’s real, and it does impact resolution in a predictable way that varies directly with aperture. HOWEVER the final image is a result of more variables than that, and diffraction impacts, but does not determine resolution. For instance, there are lenses that can still cause moire patterns on a D800/E past the point that diffraction as started to impact resolution.

        And finally, if we ever see a D800 on the ISS, it is very unlikely to be an “E”. If you don’t know why, ask an astronomer.

        • Aldo

          NASA: we have discovered a new nebula…. wait nevermind it’s just moire…

  • Heard M. Hadfield on the CBC (Canadian Radio & TV) and on a local radio station. For an Astronaut, he’s quite a down to earth guy! (Pun definitely intended). One could say, he’s very well grounded. Ok, stopping before I make a fool of myself. Great post.

  • Martin

    His twitter feed is pretty cool!

  • saywhatuwill

    I like his Omega X-33 watch which is only available, new, to active military pilots and astronauts. They get a huge discount over what the public was asked to pay. It may be ugly but it’s so darn versatile. One of my favorite watches.

    As for the camera, using a Nikon D3S (or so it seems) makes me feel better using a camera that only has 12MP. Once they start updating their cameras to 36MP then we might start to see buildings once they enlarge their pictures.

  • photomanayu

    can’t believe how much hot pixel is on the camera he recorded this video with. never seen anything near that many. super cool video.

  • 103David

    How to take pictures from the ISS.
    Step one. Actually have an ISS.
    And/or
    Step two. Actually be on the ISS.
    …:-)

  • Den

    Seems it’s so easy to carry such heavy gear 🙂

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