Shooting the Milky Way
I’ve always been drawn to long exposure photography, from rivers looking like silk, to making the Milky Way shine. With a long enough exposure time you can make almost anything moving, disappear or into a ghost subject. You can capture the motion of a child swinging or of your friend running, if you know what you’re doing.
Do you have a camera and a steady surface? Then you can shoot long exposures.
Tips for taking pictures of the Milky Way
Get a star app!
Wide angle lenses, wider the better
Lots of light is important (in most situations) so use a lower f/stop and bring that ISO up
Tripods are your best friend, use them if you have them
Connect to your camera with a phone or use a timer to click the shutter
Bring your focus to infinity not past it
Shoot the sky not the ground
Prep before you shoot
Here is a photo of stars taken from the ground. You can see the grass is framing the stars. I put my camera on a bed of grass with a 2 second timer. Not the best makeshift tripod but it did the trick!
Settings: f/3.2 – 30 Sec – ISO 3200
You can see star trails, everything is slightly out of focus and in the photo next to it you can see my hat. Using a surface that is not slowly sinking is more ideal (silly grass), hard ground, part of a vehicle, concrete railing, you get the picture.
Depending on the time of year, where you live and where the milky way is visible will be factors. You can get apps to help you find what you’re looking for. I use Stellarium but you can find what works best for you.
Using a wide angle lens will allow you to have a slower shutter speed without having star trails. Wider the lens, the slower the shutter speed can be, the more light/into your camera’s sensor will pick up.
The aperture (f/stop) should be wide open to allow the maximum amount of light in. If your lens only goes as low as f/4 that just means you need to bring your ISO up. Want to create a lot of grain and isn’t grain really bad??? Simple answer. No. Knowing how to use ISO is important.
