Milky way shooting

recently I am getting interested in milkyway photography...
for the focus part, general recommendation is to manual focus at infinity.. that way I will get the stars at focus.. but then how do I focus the foreground? at wide aperture and focus at infinity the foreground will look blurred..
How people get this kind of sharp images?
for example:
http://www.flickr.com …933380913/in/ph​otostream/

http://www.flickr.com …tiphotography/9​438432971/

Thanks

Heya,

Focused to infinity, there's a minimum distance that will be basically in focus. So long as the objects in your foreground are outside of the minimum distance, they'll focus up.

For the ones where there's no way to focus both the sky and foreground and also no way to properly light the foreground people do composites.

I do single exposures at infinity all the time, and the tree in my foreground for example, is in focus, while the sky is too. It's not hard. You just can't be at the minimum distance of your lens.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/mwise1023/12183​278903/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/mwise1023/11020​468316/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/mwise1023/11640​811145/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/mwise1023/11798​636626/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/mwise1023/11798​623196/

Typically if you are shooting the Milky way, you need to be using a very wide lens, so DOF isn't much of an issue. I've shot wide open at 2.8, and objects less than 10ft away are fine. As an example, this photo was taken with the Joshua tree only about a dozen feet away.

If you are using an AF lens, the infinity trick will not give you good results. Most AF lenses will focus slightly past infinity. The best way to focus is to set your lens to MF. Find the brightest object in the sky (moon, jupiter, bright star), and center it in the viewfinder. Switch to live view, and zoom in as much as possible (10x). Then slowly adjust focus back and forth to make the star as small as possible. Once you've got it set, don't touch it again...

This time of year, the milky way is visible, but not idea in the Northern hemisphere. We are currently facing away from the galactic center at night. It will be best through the summer months, when we face the galactic core.

As what Paul said, summer months are best to shoot the MW. I shot the MW quite a bit last summer and gathered some decent knowledge on the subject. For me, learning how to light paint was the biggest issue. Getting even lighting can be difficult and very time consuming, to say the least. It's not uncommon for me to spend a few hours at one spot just screwing the the lighting. I generally compose/focus and shoot the foreground first with LED's and take as many exposures with the lights as necessary without moving the camera (wireless trigger helps for this part!). I normally stop down a bit to ensure enough DoF to cover the foreground and use longer exposures to light as much as possible. Typical settings would be something like ISO 800, F/4-5.6, and 30 seconds to two minutes for exposure.

As for the stars themselves, that's really the easy part. A fast/wide lens works best, wide open, and for the longest amount of time without getting star movement (a star tracking device can negate that though). Normal settings with a 14mm lens would be something like ISO 3200, 20-30 seconds, F/2.8. That should give you a nice and bright MW. And since the camera didn't move, it's easy enough to combine the images from the foreground so everything lines up. Another issue is the planning of the MW to make sure you have enough time to shoot the foreground before the MW moves out of position. It's all just trial and error. Below are a few of my samples from last year. Hope that helps!

rparchen wrote in post #16713614
As for the stars themselves, that's really the easy part. A fast/wide lens works best, wide open, and for the longest amount of time without getting star movement (a star tracking device can negate that though). Normal settings with a 14mm lens would be something like ISO 3200, 20-30 seconds, F/2.8. That should give you a nice and bright MW. And since the camera didn't move, it's easy enough to combine the images from the foreground so everything lines up. Another issue is the planning of the MW to make sure you have enough time to shoot the foreground before the MW moves out of position. It's all just trial and error. Below are a few of my samples from last year. Hope that helps!

Are those single exposures for the stars themselves too? I've gone out a few times in some fairly dark areas (Big Sur, Iceland), but I never capture so much detail and color! Those are incredible and it blows my mind to see photos like that. So many stars and such brilliant lighting in the MW itself. I'm going to Africa in two weeks for a safari trip, and I'm hoping to try a few nightscapes again while there and away from city lights. I'd be elated to just get something half as incredible as that.

They are single exposures. I've found that going to dark skies is the single biggest factor in MW photography. Southern Utah and Oregon are some of the darkest places that I've been to and the arch of the MW is clearly visible to the naked eye. I imagine that Africa would be great as well. Also, processing is essential to get the detail/color from the stars. There are some good tips in this thread that was started last year:
https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1315537

Excellent - thank you for the link and explanation. It was only just barely visible when I was in Big Sur, so maybe I'll have better luck in Africa. I'm sure it's something I'll need to take a few outings to practice as well.

Hopefully I can get some good shots, yours are fantastic!

Stunning images Rick!

Bryan

Rick, great response and amazing photos! I've been seeing your stuff on facebook and on instagram too I believe. The light painting you're doing is perfect, it can be SO hard to get light painting to look natural. I haven't been doing any light painting lately (need to pick up some LED's!) but what I have been doing is longer foreground exposures with different focus points/stopping down my lens.

I'll do an exposure for the sky at iso2500-3200 f2.8 25-30 seconds, and then shoot a foreground exposure at iso1250-1600 f5.6 for anywhere from 1 minute to sometimes up to 10 minutes depending on how dark it is. Then I will blend them using layer masks in photoshop. I am using a crop sensor 60D though which is not very good in low light. A good friend who is a super talented astrophotographer is using a 6D which is amazing in low light and he'll just do a single exposure of 30 seconds @2.8 iso 3200 and he gets enough dynamic range to get everything from one frame.

Mess around and try some different techniques, either way you'll have a good time! Nothing like being out under the stars on a clear night

Amazing shots Rick. The first 2 are outstanding