Sleeping under the stars.....

A few years ago ...okay, a couple of decades ago.... a good friend and I would go camping, sometimes without a tent, just sleeping under the stars. We now get together once a year and rent an Forest Service cabin in Oregon. This shot was taken on our trip this last July.

 

This isn't the greatest of shots, but a friend at work was asking how I go about capturing the Milky Way, so I thought I'd post up this shot and give some details.

 

I'm by no means an expert here, but I'll share what I've learned.....

 

1) First, I really wish I had a full frame camera....but alas, I don't.

2) You need to be away from cities and light pollution.

3) No moon or light from the sun. (i.e. shoot between astronomical twilight times)

4) Use the highest ISO you can and still get a usable photo. (I used 1600 for this shot) Noise reduction software is going to be a must for your final image.

5) Use the widest aperture you can and focus at infinity (I was at f/4.0 here)

6) Wider focal lengths will give a large view and allow for longer exposures. Rule of thumb to keep stars from having trails is exposure (in seconds) = 500 / focal length. On this shot I used 16mm (effective), so I should have been shooting at 30 sec, but I pushed to 60 to bring in more light, since my lens can't open up to f/2.8.

6) Lastly, you're going to have to do some processing if you really want to bring the colors out of the shot. To get the image above, I used levels, curves, and layer overlays in Photoshop.

Done