How to take milky way photos?
Astrophotography is one of the most interesting, at the same time challenging genres of photography. Have you ever wondered how these photographers capture such beautiful and mind-blowing nightscapes with the Milkyway and stars and all? Are you one of those who want to take such photos and get confused with all the complex steps involved? Don’t worry this is a simple tutorial that helps you to quickly master the basics of milky way photography.
Milky way over Lake Wairarapa, New Zealand.
If you are an absolute beginner and have no idea what it is or you want to try it out, just go through the entire blog. Here we discuss what is astrophotography, its different types and why it's important as any other genre. We also see a bit of science and the philosophical side of astrophotography.
Or if you already managed to capture some photos and knew a bit of technique but still struggle to get your brain around it just press here.
Table of contents
General view
Astrophotography is a vast area. Any photography related to stars, milky way, moon, meteor shower or deep-sky comes under Astrophotography.
I like to divide these into three categories
Wide-angle nightscapes
Deep-sky photography
Lunar Photography
( There are scientific classifications for astrophotography like Piggyback, prime focus, afocal etc, but we are beginners aren’t we?)
Wide-angle nightscapes
This is the most popular form among the three, combining those beautiful landscapes with the amazing night sky makes the photo so dreamy and celestial. In this tutorial, we will be covering only this section.
Deep-sky photography
This includes taking photos of objects beyond our solar system. By deep-sky what I meant is nebulae, star clusters, comets and galaxies.
Lunar photography
Capturing the moon either with the landscape or just the moon at different lunar cycles. Lunar photography requires perfect planning and zoom lenses (200mm or more). We will talk about lunar photography on our next blog.
Moon rise over the hills of Wainuiomata, New Zealand.
Alright, let's dive deeper into wide-angle nightscapes.
As the name suggests it’s wide-angle. Yes, we are shooting with a wide-angle lens. Of course, you can use a zoom lens and make a panorama and stitch in software but it involves more practice and patience. We will talk about it another time.
Under this section, we will be learning about
Planning and location hunting
Gear reconditions and how to use them
Complete setup guide, which covers focusing at night, camera settings and some tips from my personal experience.
Planning
Planning is one of the most important parts of any type of photography. A well-planned shot always stands out.
There are a couple of apps that I personally recommend for planning.
Photopills
Light pollution map
Google earth
Photopills is an all-rounder app in which you can do anything and everything related to the milky way planning like when and where you can see the milky way, moon positions, blue hour and golden hour and the list go on. There is a night AR too with which you can see and spot the celestial bodies through the phone screen. Photopills do have a dedicated YouTube channel on how to use Photopills. Check out this video from Photopills on how to plan milky way shots.
A light pollution map is a must-have app, to find the dark sky location around us. I use a light pollution map to find how dark the location is.
Google earth is another app in which you can have a basic idea of the location. You know it.
All these apps help you to hunt your location and plan for a perfect milky way shot. Another important thing to remember is that based on where you live there are particular seasons for spotting the milky way in the sky. For example in New Zealand, the milky way is visible from the months of February to October, with June and July being the months where the galactic core is in its most brightness.
Understanding the location is something very important. You will be going out at night with a head torch or with your mobile torch, so without a proper understanding of the location, it will be hard to get a proper composition. If the area is not at all familiar to you consider reaching there before sunset and frame composition.
Camera and Lens
Regarding the camera, any DSLR or mirrorless camera with good low light capabilities is ideal for milky way photography. Moreover, I would recommend using a full-frame camera as it can gather more light due to the bigger sensor compared to the crop sensor. The one I use is Canon Eos R and Canon 6D.
As we are talking about wide-angle astrophotography any lens less than 35mm is what I would recommend. A fast lens with a wide aperture of f2.8 or lower is preferred as it captures more light. The benefit of using a wide-angle lens is that you can capture more of the milky way and the beautiful landscape.
Some of my recommendations for beginners are Rokinon 14 mm 2.8 Rokinon 24mm f2.4, Samyang 14mm f2.8, my favourite is Irix 15mm f2.4.
Another important one is the tripod. A strong and steady tripod with good loading capabilities is a must as we are dealing with longer exposures, we need to keep our setups as sturdy as possible.
Likewise having a remote shutter realise could be of great help as this will minimize any vibrations or shake due to pressing the shutter button.
Now let's get into settings
Go manual, yes you have to go manual for astrophotography because as it’s dark you can't rely on the camera to automatically do settings for you.
The first thing to master after understanding your gear is how to calculate the shutter speed based on the lens. As we know shutter speed is all about freezing the motion. For astrophotography using the right shutter speed is crucial for getting sharp stars without trails. You can use Photopills to calculate the shutter speed for your lens.
OR
You can use the 500 rule, here is what it is. You divide 500 by your equivalent focal length. For example, suppose you are using a 14mm lens on a full-frame body then 500 divided by 14 is 35.714 seconds. But that being said 500 rule is not always accurate. So what I would recommend is to do a bit of trial and error. What I meant by this is try the 500 rule and figure out your recommended shutter speed, then take a trial shot and see if the stars are still sharp without trails when 10X magnified on the screen. If not, reduce your shutter speed and try. From my experience for my Irix 15mm I use about 20 or 25 seconds although it would be about 33 seconds according to the 500 rule. It's better to lose some light rather than having trails.
Always shoot in RAW, yes you need to shoot on raw to get all the details.
The lower the aperture the better. A wide-open lens can gather more light. As mentioned above in the lens section, f 2.8 or lower.
Regarding ISO you need to use a much higher ISO like 3200 or 6400.
White balance is something you need to keep in mind, I won’t advise you to use auto white balance, though you are shooting in RAW I advise shooting in a cooler temperature.
Ok now we know what the settings we need to use to capture a milky way shot, next important one is focusing. You might be wondering how I am gonna focus in the dark?. It’s ok here are the steps to nail the focusing at dark
After setting your camera on a tripod point your camera to the brightest star in the sky or you can focus on any light source that is really far from you.
Turn your lens to manual focusing.
Turn on the live view and find the star on your screen and zoom 10x on it. Once that’s done, slowly adjust the focus ring until you find the star is pinpoint and sharpest. Try back and forth.
Also, a note to remember is most of the lens do have an infinity focus point on the lens but in most cases to get a perfect focus, try doing manually as mentioned above.
Alright, now we have seen what settings to use and how to focus. Let's see an example that I use for my milky way photos.
Canon Eos R
Irix 15 mm f2.4 wide open at 2.4
Iso 6400
25-second exposure.
Here are some tips that I learned in my journey
Always use a cable or wireless shutter release to eliminate the minimum shake or vibration.
If you have no shutter release make sure you use the 10-second timer in your camera. I do use both shutter release and 2-second timer.
Always look for the moon position in your app while you are planning, moonlight won't expose the milky way details, that being said 10 per cent or 20 per cent of the moon is in a way good for exposing the foreground but if the moon and galactic core at the same place, that’s gonna be a problem.
Make sure your tripod is sturdy, we are doing long exposure here so any sort of shake or vibrations can destroy your shot.
The same is the case with wind if it’s a windy night that’s again another challenge.
The colder the better, a cold night will give you better results as there is very less dust in the atmosphere compared to a warm day.
The last one is wearing an appropriate dress, nights can be really cold and also consider taking enough water or drinks.
So that’s it, these are the things which I learned in my first year of astrophotography. It’s a vast area. Once you master all this you can try to take much better photos by stacking, tracking and all. We will see about the post-processing part in my next blog. Until then, keep on practising.
