| Joined: | Sun Apr 1st, 2012 |
| Location: | South Lakeland, UK |
| Posts: | 4066 |
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You have a fair range of zoom with your two kit lenses, I would suggest given your interest in astro photography that you get some non zoom lenses (sometimes known as primes) because they can give much better results and are usually faster (brighter) than budget zooms.
Well worth considering are Samyang or its other equivalent name brands, Bower and Rokinon for astrophotography, with one caveat, you must be prepared to return for exchange these lenses until you get a good sample, the first lens you get may not be perfect but once you get a good sample they are worth the trouble and are generally significantly cheaper than alternatives especially the equivalent Nikkors. If you have a local dealer, as I have, it's probably worth using them because it may be easier to exchange an imperfect sample.
This is a useful resource for astro photography:
http://www.lonelyspeck.com
There is a ton of very useful info and it's put across in a friendly and helpful way.
In difficult conditions (low light, high contrast etc.) may I suggest making an exposure in fully auto, as well as exposures at your own settings. Compare the fully auto with your own exposure and compare the EXIF data, it can sometimes be surprising how good the fully auto can be, which doesn't mean you shouldn't strive to master exposure or creative results, it can just be handy as a learning tool.
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Robert.