A Quick Tutorial on How to Capture The Milky Way
I get asked how I capture my Milky way photographs almost every day, so I decided to add a little tutorial to my website about this matter. In this tutorial, I will outline how to shoot the Milky way, this will include settings of the camera, how to find the Milky way and then talk about limits of shutter speed and ISO you should keep in mind.
For me Astrophotography, particularly wide angle astrophotography is one of my favourite aspects of landscape photography. It has such calming aspect to it and I will happily stay up all night for it. Milkyway photography is challenging, especially when you have the know-how of how to capture it, that alone doesn't make up for a good photo. The real challenge for me comes in, when I am trying to find a location that firstly, is dark enough and secondly makes up for a composition that is interesting enough to keep the viewer entertained. Nowadays a lot of people photograph the nightsky, but a lot of these images seem boring.
WHAT YOU WILL NEED FOR PHOTOGRAPHING THE MILKYWAY:
- A DSRL or mirrorless camera, where you have the ability to set manual settings
- A tripod that keeps your camera steady during long exposures.
- A lens that has a high aperture of at least f/4, better would be f/2.8 or even f/1.4
- For beginners, I would suggest a lens with 35mm or wider on Full frame, On APS-C (cropped sensor cameras) 20mm or wider
CAMERA
Photographing the night sky is definitely not one of the hardest tasks, but is also a section of landscape photography where the equipment can make all the difference! Over the last few years the sensor technology has continued to improve and native ISO limits are increasing year by year. Generally it has to be said though, that Full Frame Cameras have an advantage compared to APS-C cameras, as the they have the ability to let in more light due to larger pixels.
My very first attempt at capturing the Milkyway! 25sec f/4 ISO4000 24mm Full Frame
LENS
Over all can be said, that the smaller the focal length and the wider aperture is, the better your images will turn out. As mentioned above, I recommend a wide aperture of at least f/4, everything smaller will be hard. (In my beginner years I tired to shoot at f/5.6, and it was a pain). If you don't have anything wider than that you can give it a try, you will definitely see the Milkyway in your photos, but you won't have to many options in post processing without creating too much noise. If you're looking at purchasing a new lens soon, also in regards of astrophotography.
Planning
Planning is an essential part when it comes to shooting the Milky way. There are many things to consider!
Moon: You will definitely need to check the moon phases. You either want to be shooting when the moon is not up or even better when it is new moon.
Weather: The weather plays a big part. If it is cloudy, no Milky way will be visible, so make sure to check forecasts beforehand!
Twilight: You definitely want to be shooting in complete darkness. Most photographers are familiar with the phrases “golden hour” and “blue hour”. You can shoot the Milky way during blue hour, but usually you get more stars and better results when you shoot during astronomical twilight or complete nighttime.
Seasons: It might sound funny, but there are actually different seasons. There is better and worse times to photograph the Milky way.. For example, in Europe, summer is the better time with the Milky way’s galactic core being much higher in the sky than in winter.
To help with the planning there is some very useful apps for iPhone and Android that can help you with finding out the moon phase, finding where the Milky way is located.
Shooting the Milky way
While shooting the Milky way, there is a few things to take into account! I will know explain how you should set up your camera in aspect of Shutter Speed, Aperture and ISO.
APERTURE
Your aperture should be as wide open as possible. Some prime lenses with i.e. f/1.4 are often sharper and have less coma when stopped down a bit! Usually, as already stated, I wouldn't go anything smaller than f/4.
ISO
Usually I would recommend setting the ISO between 3200 and 6400. Usually you always try to use ISO's as low as possible, but Milkyway photography is different. If you were to use low ISO, you wouldn't be able to capture much detail of the dust fields of the Milkyway! I always recommend to try out different ISO settings and see what works best for your location.
SHUTTER SPEED
Shutter Speed is definitely the most difficult setting, as your exposure time changes with different focal lengths! I.e you can expose on 20mm full frame for about 30 seconds, if you were to expose the same time on 35mm you will start to see star trailing as the earth rotates. When shooting the Milky way you always want nice sharp stars! Another thing that has to be considered is that full frame and cropped sensor have different exposure times, as 20mm on full frame won't be the equivalent on APS-C . A good rule to find out how long you can expose your shot for, is to divide 500 by your focal length, if you're using full frame. If you are using an APS-C camera you will have to dived the 500 on top of the focal length by the crop factor.
Examples:
· 500 ÷ 14mm on a full frame sensor = 35 seconds
· 500 ÷ 24mm = 20 seconds
· 500 ÷ 18mm ÷ 1.6 for a Canon crop sensor = 17 seconds
· 500 ÷ 50mm ÷ 2 for a mirrorless sensor = 5 seconds
I often subtract another 3-5 seconds from these calculations to ensure sharp stars when shooting along the horizon, especially when printing large like 85cm x 60cm from a high-resolution sensor. For time-lapses and star trails a small amount of streaking won’t matter.
FOCUSING
Especially when shooting at night, focusing can be tough! Here is how I handle focusing during night time.
- Find a bright star, position it in the corner of the frame, as they tend to be a little less sharper
- Put your camera into manual focusing.
- Open Live-View on your camera and use digital zoom.
- Focus on the star till it looks sharp
NOW GO OUT THERE AND SHOOT THE MILKYWAY, A LOT OF FUN IS GANRANTUEED!!
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Was this helpful to you? Are you still confused? Leave me a comment down below!