Recommend Lens for Milky Way

I want to take recommendations for what lenses are good to shoot the Milky Way. The last time I was up in the mountains, I tried out my 24-105 for Milky Way but the f/4 didn't seem to pick up the detail well enough. I got a decent looking shot, but it lacked the detail in the Milky Way. I'm looking for something not terribly expensive but still quality.

Tamron 24-70?
Any of the Rokinon/Samyang? 14mm prime may be a little too wide.

How about the Rokinon/Samyang 24mm 1.4?

JM Photos wrote in post #17315582
I want to take recommendations for what lenses are good to shoot the Milky Way. The last time I was up in the mountains, I tried out my 24-105 for Milky Way but the f/4 didn't seem to pick up the detail well enough. I got a decent looking shot, but it lacked the detail in the Milky Way. I'm looking for something not terribly expensive but still quality.

Tamron 24-70?
Any of the Rokinon/Samyang? 14mm prime may be a little too wide.

Heya,

Samyang 24 F1.4. Manual lens. Wide. Fast. Sharp. Awesome coma control. Easily the better wide field sky lens under $1.5k.

More info on it's performance (and way coma control at wide aperture on a wide lens matters for milky way).

Very best,

Agreed:

http://www.lonelyspeck​.com …mm-f1-4-ed-as-umc-review/

I'd consider the Samyang/Rokinon 14mm as an alternative. I don't think it's too wide. The wider angle allows you to pick up more of the galaxy and more of the surrounding sky, which makes the Milky Way stand out more. In fact, the best shots are often panoramas of multiple images that are stitched together, and the wider field of view with the 14 mm means less shots need to be stitched. The 14mm also allows longer exposures without trailing, and is cheaper It's a fantastic Milky Way lens when paired with the 6D!

Here's one of my examples of a stitched panorama spanning about 200 degrees horizontally (2 rows of 9 images):

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/p6TJ​PU

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/oFTR​uD

danialsturge wrote in post #17315613
Agreed:

http://www.lonelyspeck​.com …mm-f1-4-ed-as-umc-review/

The lonely speck is a very good site for wide sky Astro in general. I wish he had money to review more gear.

You might want to look at Tokina lenses as well. For crop cameras, the most popular choices would be the 11-16 f/2.8. For FF, there's the 16-28 f/2.8.
I was looking at that lens for my 6D before, but lack the budget. So I looked up and got a good deal on the Tamron 17-35 f/2.8-4. For astrophoto you'd need the widest angle at f/2.8 anyway so the varying aperture wouldn't matter that much in that case.

Hope that helps!

I used to use a Tokina 11-16 for Milky way shots but sold it to fund a new body. It was great while I had it.

caed wrote in post #17321026
You might want to look at Tokina lenses as well. For crop cameras, the most popular choices would be the 11-16 f/2.8. For FF, there's the 16-28 f/2.8.
I was looking at that lens for my 6D before, but lack the budget. So I looked up and got a good deal on the Tamron 17-35 f/2.8-4. For astrophoto you'd need the widest angle at f/2.8 anyway so the varying aperture wouldn't matter that much in that case.

Hope that helps!

I have the 16-28 f2.8 and love it. I had the Rokinon 14 f2.8 before and I think I had a bad copy. It just plain sucked. For a little more I picked up the Tokina and the zoom and the AF is worth the extra cost.

you should stick to something wide, like the 14F2.8 or 24F1.4

24-105 is just a bad MW lens.

Rotation of earth, the longer your focal length, then shorter duration of time you have to capture, so fast prime is desireable as well as super wide.

Unfortunately, these lenses are not for the faint of heart. They can be very difficult to use.

Charlie wrote in post #17321346
you should stick to something wide, like the 14F2.8 or 24F1.4

24-105 is just a bad MW lens.

Rotation of earth, the longer your focal length, then shorter duration of time you have to capture, so fast prime is desireable as well as super wide.

Unfortunately, these lenses are not for the faint of heart. They can be very difficult to use.

I used to have the Rokinon 14mm and loved it. Sold it for needing money. I now want the 24mm 1.4 Rokinon I think for MW

you could also look at getting a tracker for milky way shots...it'll allow you to use just about any lens

DreDaze wrote in post #17321938
you could also look at getting a tracker for milky way shots...it'll allow you to use just about any lens

Trackers are great for deep sky but when you want to include the background landscape in the shot, it will only motion blur the landscape. You could photoshop the landscape from a still image, but if you are going to go through that trouble, you could just multishot the whole image and merge the stars and layer mask out the other landscapes and just save yourself the $350 on the tracker

FEChariot wrote in post #17322337
Trackers are great for deep sky but when you want to include the background landscape in the shot, it will only motion blur the landscape. You could photoshop the landscape from a still image, but if you are going to go through that trouble, you could just multishot the whole image and merge the stars and layer mask out the other landscapes and just save yourself the $350 on the tracker

true...but he didn't mention including landcapes in the image, so it would work well on just the stars...there also is the option to run the tracker at half speed to not completely blur the foreground of the earth...i only used mine once, so i'm not that great with it, but i'm looking forward to next summer, right now the milky way barely gets above the horizon where i'm at

Hello everyone,

First of all I want to say I know nothing whatever about shooting stars, but I'd like to have a go at it.

I am planning to buy an ultra wide-angle: Canon 10-18 STM or Canon 10-22 USM.
As far as I've understood the latter should be better as it has a better aperture.
Due to the fact that for my purposes both wide-angle will do, my question is: is it worthwhile the extra money I'd spend for the 10-22 USM considering shooting stars?

Thank you in advance,

Fabrizio