The Milky Way (Attempt)

[rexbobcat]

Here's my attempt at photographing The Milky Way. Luckily there was no moon out at this time last night so I only had to deal with light from the horizon. I also couldn't find a decent foreground in this direction so I was just lik "tree will work." I'm contented with the photo's content, but it's quality is rather poor.

The 1D Mark II does not handle long exposure high ISO as well as newer cameras, partly because of sensor technology and partly because the firmware doesn't allow long exposure noise reduction etc...I had to apply a lot of PP noise reduction lol.

But I did my best.

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

That's pretty cool, but, I really don't like the tree. Sticks out like a sore thumb.

 

[SCraig]

The best way to handle shots like that is by stacking relatively short exposures. I saw one on another forum that was absolutely gorgeous. It's been a while so I've probably got the numbers wrong, but as I recall the guy said he stacked something like 100 shots, each one about 5 second long. Or maybe it was 5 that were 100 seconds long, I don't remember. I just remember the vastness of the shot and the amazing pastel colors that it picked up. Something you might want to look into.

Great start, but I don't like the tree either

 

[sm4him]

That's three against the tree, so far. It just pulls too much attention away from the sky.
But the Milky Way part is pretty cool!

 

[rexbobcat]

The best way to handle shots like that is by stacking relatively short exposures. I saw one on another forum that was absolutely gorgeous. It's been a while so I've probably got the numbers wrong, but as I recall the guy said he stacked something like 100 shots, each one about 5 second long. Or maybe it was 5 that were 100 seconds long, I don't remember. I just remember the vastness of the shot and the amazing pastel colors that it picked up. Something you might want to look into.

Great start, but I don't like the tree either

What's the point of stacking so many shots though? This was shot at 10 seconds I believe. Any slower and I got a lot of blur from the stars moving.

 

[rexbobcat]

That's three against the tree, so far. It just pulls too much attention away from the sky.
But the Milky Way part is pretty cool!

I have one of just the silhouette, but even the silhouette is kind of awkward and unbalanced. The foreground on general just kind of sucked. I'll try to get back out there this weekend.

I was just trying to do something different besides pretty, yet cliche night sky lol

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

I think it could work better if the tree were grounded. Without the ground being lit the same, the tree is floating...<insert creepy copyrighted music here>

 

[LittleMike]

What was your focal length? That has a large role on how long of an exposure you can use without getting streaks. Just as an example, these were both 30 second exposures at 24mm (full-frame).

 

[rexbobcat]

It was 24mm, which is the equivalent of 32mm on my camera. It was the widest I had that could give enough light.

 

[imagesliveon]

I wish the sky looked like that here! Where we're the OP photo taken??

 

[paigew]

yeah that sky looks awesome Not a fan of the tree though.

 

[afoto]

well, i'm against the tree as well.. but the sky looks truly beautiful.
What was your aperture and iso settings for this shot? any photoshop added to get the colours of the milky way to stand out?