Big Dipper, tough to photograph.

[ednorm]

I tried to photograph the big dipper, which looked so bright and easy to shoot. I was using a tripod and a Tamron my cousin gave me, I had the same one and lost it, he says this one will not focus in low light but I have had no more problems with this than I had with my one. This picture was the best I could get, I had to use the wide end of the 18-200mm f3.5-6.3 lens and it provided a less than "stellar" shot.

Exif Stuff
Camera Canon EOS 7D
Exposure 10
Aperture f/5.6
Focal Length 18 mm
ISO Speed 800
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Flash Off, Did not fire



What sage advice can you offer me towards a better brighter shot?

ed

[RecurrentNerve]

You really have only 2 choices - a longer exposure or a higher ISO. Of course you have trade-offs - longer exposure will means the stars will streak, higher ISO will introduce noise. In the shot below I went for a high ISO (6400) - I got more stars, but it's noisy and lost sharpness.