Tried taking pics of the milky way and failed, but I did get this

Just as title stated, I went out to the middle of no where, literally. I could even see the band of the milky with my eye but no matter the exposure I played with, I could not get anywhere near the shots I have seen here. From fstops of 1.2 to 2.8 and isos 400 to 3200. Nada. Oh well.

While I was wasting my time with that, I did have my other camera going and caught this star trail though, so all was not lost.

Read this for pro's and cons of stacked and long exposures and how to's

http://theamusing.com …startrails.html​/?w=flickr

http://www.fredmiranda​.com/forum/topic/72576​9/0

I'm surprised you didn't capture much of the Milky Way, especially if you could see it with your eyes and you can open your lens to f/1.2! What's the lens focal length though?

What were your settings for this star trail?

CTP; check out the second pic in this thread:
https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=916592
24mm 2.8 25 seconds @ 3200
your 50mm won't give you the same widefield, but your 17-55 should give you something usable (You may have to bump up the ISO on the 7D to get the equivalent exposure)

I could see the band of the milky way, but not any of the color attributed to it quite yet. Here is the best of what I could get, all shot in raw and exported directly to jpeg with no editing. Any help in which direction to go next is greatly appreciated.

17mm 2.8 ISO1600 30sec

Abeverage wrote in post #10738002
What were your settings for this star trail?

17mm 2.8 ISO800 30sec, 45 images stacked in Photoshop using the startrails action.

can't do a lot with a small jpg, but

HOSTED PHOTO
please log in to view hosted photos in full size.

I just checked some my camera jpegs of the milky way with similar exposures and they are on par with what you have. If you have a few images, have a look at the threads on Deep Sky Stacker and also on using curves on astronomical images. I think that there's more in your images than you appreciate. You just need to tease it out.

Mine do look a little brighter. Did you remember to take the CPL off ? It wouldn't be the first time.

Steve.

SteveInNZ wrote in post #10740640
I just checked some my camera jpegs of the milky way with similar exposures and they are on par with what you have. If you have a few images, have a look at the threads on Deep Sky Stacker and also on using curves on astronomical images. I think that there's more in your images than you appreciate. You just need to tease it out.

Mine do look a little brighter. Did you remember to take the CPL off ? It wouldn't be the first time.

Steve.

Reading up on both those topics and I will post back with the results. Thanks for the help!

I am wedding guy floundering in area of little knowledge, so I need help on what a CPL is.

CTP wrote in post #10740999
Reading up on both those topics and I will post back with the results. Thanks for the help!

I am wedding guy floundering in area of little knowledge, so I need help on what a CPL is.

Circular Polarizer - On your not so disappointing site, I saw that you also dabble in the landscape world.

Steve.

SteveInNZ wrote in post #10741333
Circular Polarizer - On your not so disappointing site, I saw that you also dabble in the landscape world.

Steve.

Thanks for the help on CPL! Yeah, landscapes is what got me to dig deeper into the photography world. I grew up outside, most of the time it was from my grandparents dropping me off at a park and saying they will be back in 3 hours, go find something to do.

Nope - not a failure at all.
Those are actually some nice pics. If you do pp work, use the RAW (.CR2)- there's a lot more data there than ya realize.
You'll see it when you stretch the levels some.
There's a quick example of "how to" on YT http://www.youtube.com​/watch?v=j9MeGLiAk9A

To break that "30 second shutter barrier", you might want to try using a multifuction remote like the TC-80N3 or connect your cameras to a laptop with the EOS utility
for longer "bulb" mode shots for the startrails.

To heck with the milky way -- first shot is very nice!

monty28428 wrote in post #10746819
To heck with the milky way -- first shot is very nice!

Actually I was thinking the same thing!