How to photograph the starry sky and the Milky Way

Introduction: Starry sky, Milky Way and star track photography is a shooting subject between astrophotography and landscape photography that has become rapidly popular in recent years. Due to the harsh on-site shooting conditions and high equipment and hardware requirements, Starry sky photography has always been shrouded in a mysterious veil, which fascinates everyone. In fact, starry sky photography is not difficult from a technical perspective. It can even be said to be very simple. Once you master the pre- and post-production shooting techniques, you can also shoot starry sky and galaxy blockbusters. How to photograph the starry sky and the Milky Way

1. The influence of natural conditions

1. First of all, you must be able to see the stars

Like all landscape photography, starry sky photography is the first priority The factor is that you can see the stars. To take good starry sky and Milky Way photos, you must see them. This harsh natural environment requirement directly kills the desire of many photography enthusiasts living in big cities to shoot starry skies. Domestic cities of all sizes are Due to the pursuit of night scene lighting projects and air pollution, it is basically impossible to photograph the starry sky around the city. Therefore, for domestic photographers, if they want to shoot the starry sky, they must go a little further, away from the city and away from light pollution.

2. Only when there are no clouds and no moon can you see the beauty of the starry sky

The second important factor is the weather. Cloudy and rainy seasons are often not suitable for shooting starry skies. I was in Sichuan-Qinghai-Tibet Region in 2013 During the whole 15 days on the plateau, I didn’t see a perfect starry sky. It was good to see a few stars through the clouds, because it was the rainy season and it was often cloudy at night. My friend told me that in Tibetan areas Winter is more suitable for shooting starry skies. If you want to take pictures of the stars when traveling, it is necessary to do research on the weather near the destination over the years so that you are well aware of it.

3. The moon and stars are rare

The third important factor is the interference of the moon. There is a saying called "the moon and stars are rare", which puts it very straightforwardly, "full moon day" , the ground is bright, but there are few stars. In the new moon sky, the ground is dark, but there are many stars? We will talk about this in detail later. We can shoot different content on different moon phases.

A lot.

2. Equipment for starry sky photography

Many times we say that the head behind the lens determines the success or failure of the shooting, but when it comes to starry sky photography, the camera often directly determines the composition. Whether it's good or bad even determines what you photograph.

1. SLR body

A high-quality SLR camera, such as Canon’s EOS 6D, 5d3 and Nikon’s D7100, D700 and D800 are enough, of course you have A top flagship machine D3s, D4 or 1dx would be even better.

2. Wide-angle lens

Have an ultra-wide-angle lens with a large aperture. The large aperture of f/2.8 is a standard, and a 16mm or 14mm ultra-wide angle is better.

3. Tripod

A set of pan-tilt and tripod combination suitable for vertical shooting is necessary. It can expose for tens of seconds or even hours, and it must be stable and motionless. Note that many ball heads require the purchase of an additional L-shaped bracket to be suitable for vertical shooting.

4. Shutter release cable

For a shutter release cable that can be used for timed shooting (built-in in some Nikon models), it is best to use a wired one. Do not use a wireless remote control shutter release cable, because long exposure times Or the timed automatic interval shutter, the stability of the remote control is much worse.

3. Things to note when shooting

Use weather forecast websites to check meteorological information for astronomical photography. You can go to a website to read the astronomical and meteorological forecast. It can tell you clearly and intuitively whether today is suitable for stargazing. Weather suitable for stargazing is relatively suitable for photographing the starry sky. Take Shanghai as an example:

Obviously, the Poor time in the picture above is not suitable for shooting, and the Excellent time is the best time for shooting. Then there are the phases of the moon and the times when the moon rises and sets. However, this is only based on the weather. In fact, it is useless to see this in Shanghai, because there is light pollution from the city that never sleeps. No matter how good the weather is, it is difficult to see a few stars in Shanghai. New moon days such as the 30th day of the lunar calendar and the first day of the lunar month are always the most suitable for stargazing and starry sky photography. If you only shoot the starry sky and not the star trails, it is very suitable for shooting when the moon has not risen or has set. See the picture below. The moon does not rise until 2:45 in the morning, so in an environment without light pollution , we can consider it a good time to shoot after 10 o'clock at night and before 2:30 in the morning. Compare photos taken at the same time from two adjacent locations with and without moonlight.

The last ray of moonlight before the moon sets (11:50) lights up the entire boardwalk, and the effect is better and more natural than the fill-in light of a flash or a flashlight.

The picture below was taken at 12:05 on the same day, which is only 15 minutes different from the picture above. However, the moon has completely set. Although the foreground is brightened through exposure, it lacks light and shadow and looks very dull. .

4. Check the map to understand the conditions of the shooting point

If it is your first time to go to the target location to shoot, it is recommended to use map software to check the surrounding buildings and roads. This can be done Know it by heart.

As shown in the picture below, it is the place where I took the photo. You can see that except for the highway, there are basically only railway tracks and no buildings around the lake. It is very suitable for shooting the starry sky.

5. About low-light focusing

When shooting at night, focusing is extremely difficult. It is often pitch black in the viewfinder and nothing can be seen. If you use common Using the manual infinity method, sometimes the focus will still be out of focus, and the stars in the photos will still be blurry.

When you zoom in on the details of the above image to the image below, you can clearly see that the stars are out of focus. This is an obvious example of incorrect focus.

Correct focusing method:

Use a flashlight to brighten the foreground, then use the camera to use Live View real-time focusing mode, magnify 10 times, and manually focus on the foreground. This method is suitable for most people In this case, the depth of field of a wide-angle lens is very large, so everything outside the focus is basically clear. As shown in the picture below, I focused on the tree on the lower right. The foreground is very clear, and the Milky Way is also very clear. The whole picture is much more comfortable to look at than the one above.

6. Composition and Distortion

The foreground part of the composition can be assisted with the help of a flashlight or car lights, but in most cases, we can only take one photo to see the actual effect. Then adjust it, and the advantages of digital cameras will be fully reflected. When photographing the starry sky, you should still pay attention to the distortion of the foreground. The stars hang high in the night sky. We all try our best to capture the entire Milky Way or capture more stars, so we always try to shoot at a low angle with our head tilted upward. This often results in extreme deformation of the landscape and the collapse of the house. , the trees grow sideways.

Of course many people will say that what I photograph is stars, and the foreground is just a reference, not the subject, so you don’t need to pay too much attention to it. My opinion is that proper horizontal, vertical and horizontal proportions are the basis of aesthetics. A good picture is often not about its wonderfully photographed parts, but the worst parts that are often criticized because of the disharmony. Places tend to stand out, and this problem can often be seen even in the work of some well-respected domestic star photographers.

There are several ways to solve distortion:

The simplest is of course to choose a more suitable foreground and avoid some vertical objects, such as houses, cypress trees, pine trees, etc. Try to choose something that will not have a big impact even if it is distorted, such as large dotted rocks, tents, or cars. Although the Land Rover in the picture below also has obvious distortion, the front part of the car is highlighted, making people feel more imposing.

Another method is to consider a tilt-shift lens if you have the conditions. It has a phase field no lower than that of a fisheye. By tilt-shifting, you can capture as much as possible while ensuring that the landscape is not distorted. Of course, the disadvantage of Star is that it loses one stop of aperture and requires doubling the ISO sensitivity. The picture above was taken using a Canon TS-E 17mm tilt-shift lens, with almost no head tilt, so you can see the boundary monument standing straight in the scene.

7. Fill-in light for the foreground

The quality of the foreground is always an important factor in the success of a starry sky photography work. How to brighten the foreground so that it can be well integrated into the entire starry sky scene? Inside is a daunting challenge. Common supplementary light methods include moonlight, flashlights, flashes, car lights, lighters and all available light sources.

Moonlight is most suitable for naturally illuminating large scenes when shooting star trails, because there are few artificial light sources that can illuminate the entire ground, and the moon’s light is the most uniform and natural. If shooting star trails, I prefer I like a sky with a bit of moon, or even a full moon sky. Although there will be fewer stars, it is actually enough to turn into star trails.

Flashlights are most convenient for filling trees and small houses in the distance, but due to the small illumination range, it is difficult to control.

The flash is most suitable for lighting up small and medium-sized foregrounds such as cars, tents, rocks, etc. The advantage of the flash is that the illumination is uniform, the output intensity can be controlled, and the color temperature can be adjusted through the color chip, which is the best way. Integrate into the starry sky scene. The Land Rover in the picture on the previous page borrowed the light pollution from the street lights on the distant highway as the side light source. The handheld flash used 1/64 of the output at the left, front and right angles to fill in the light. The light source in the car came from LCD screen in the car.

To fill in the flash, you only need to press the test button on the car within 20 sights of the shutter release. You don’t need to consider the camera top, flash trigger, front curtain or rear curtain, but you can try your best to After exposure, the fill light was completed at 10 sights.

Car lights are often the light source that you most forget to bring with you, as long as you are driving, you will have them.

Lighters are generally used to make up the faces of some starry sky portraits, which can create a relatively hesitant atmosphere. As shown in the first picture, a lighter is used as the only fill light source. Thanks to Yukiyo for providing the picture. Picture 2 shows the flash and lighter working together. You can see that the parameters of the two photos are exactly the same, but due to the different fill light effects, we get two completely different works.

8. Star track shooting

1. Preliminary shooting

Shooting star tracks is actually an advanced version of shooting the starry sky. Film cameras have advantages in shooting star trails in a sense, because the thermal noise generated by digital cameras at high sensitivities and ultra-long exposures is difficult to remove. Film cameras also have no battery pressure and can take several photos. There is actually no problem for hours. However, film has slowly withdrawn from the stage of history and is inconvenient to use. I won’t go into details here. Let’s focus on shooting star trails with digital cameras. There are generally two methods for photographing star trails, the single long exposure method and the multiple superposition method. The single long exposure method is more suitable for film machines. If a digital camera continues to expose for an hour, the high-sensitivity noise caused by heat will definitely be uncontrollable, so here we only introduce the superposition method for shooting star trails and post-processing methods.

The multiple stacking method is very simple. Use the same exposure combination (high sensitivity ISO1600 ~3200, larger aperture f/2.8, longer exposure time, no more than 60 seconds, preferably less than 30 seconds), the camera lens is pointed at Polaris (Northern Hemisphere) and takes a picture every second. The star rotates about 15 degrees for one hour of shooting. In theory, it should take 24 hours to shoot 360 degrees. In fact, it is impossible and unnecessary. .

A core problem here is to automatically take a picture every second. You cannot control this manually. Your accuracy and endurance are limited, so it is best to buy a shutter release with a timing function. Must. Generally, more than 100 pictures are taken for more than an hour. According to the number of stars, a star trail can be superimposed. Figure 16-12 took 167 photos for about an hour and a half. In fact, it only turned about 20 degrees, but it looks like a complete circle. Why is this? Because the stars are scattered in the sky. Although each one is only 15 to 20 degrees, there are stars at every angle, making it look like a complete circle.

2. Advantages of superposition method

Noise. The superposition method only takes 30 or 60 seconds per picture, so it is relatively good at thermal noise, and the superimposed picture will not be too bad. Moreover, it is said that the noise will be smoothed out during the superposition process, and there is a one-second interval between taking pictures. So the machine still combines work and rest. electricity. Although the superposition method will also be affected by battery exhaustion, as long as the battery is quickly replaced, the effect will only be affected for a few seconds, and the long exposure method will stop directly. exposure. The superposition method allows each photo to be exposed correctly without worrying about the foreground being overexposed, so you can capture more stars and normally exposed foreground, and the superimposed star trails will have a better effect. Delay. If you make a time-lapse video of the same star trail material, you can shoot two effects in one shot.

Endurance is the basis for star trails to produce blockbuster films. If the star trails are to be rounder, then only by taking more photos over a longer period of time will the star trails become smoother and more comfortable. Some of Lincoln Harrison's star track blockbusters took more than ten hours to shoot, and some star track experts in China would often shoot in the wild throughout the night in winter. Sometimes you feel that your star trails are not good enough, so you didn’t run far enough or for long enough. In the final analysis, you don’t have enough endurance. I am not a person with very good stamina, so my star track work is really not very good. I just made a circle, but from a technical point of view, there is basically no big difference.

9. The northern hemisphere faces Polaris, and the southern hemisphere faces due south.

The biggest difference between star track and star fall photography is whether you are aligned with the direction. Now that we all have smartphones, we can install some star chart APP software to help us locate the North Star, such as the famous Chinese version of Star Chart. If the Northern Hemisphere is aligned with the North Star, then the star track you take will be a star trail. If you give it enough time, it will become a circle. If it is not aligned, it will become a star. It is not always better to be round than not, because sometimes you You have to consider it based on the actual situation. Is the foreground suitable for you to take star trails? Do you have enough stars to take star trails? If you really can’t find the North Star, then just point to due north. Like me in the southern hemisphere, point to due south. Shoot. You can use a compass or the digital compass of a GPS unit to locate true south and true north.

Let’s first take a photo of a star trail as an example to introduce the superposition method to shoot star trails and post-processing.

The picture shows the star trail in Port Willunga. In terms of foreground and image quality, it is actually the best star trail I have ever taken. Unfortunately, I did not face due south and did not take the shot for a long time. I was not dedicated enough.

The picture below is one of the 70 star trails that I took for an hour on a full moon day and superimposed in the Startrails software later. It can be seen that there are really not many stars.

The parameter settings for this shot are obviously different from those for general starry sky shots. I only used ISO 400 and f/5.6. Because it was a full moon that day, the moonlight was shining directly on my head, and the brightness of the foreground was almost the same as that of the sunset. Therefore, if I use the usual starry sky setting of ISO3200 f/2.8, it will definitely be overexposed, so it is most reasonable to choose the exposure according to local conditions.

Many people say that a full moon day is not suitable for shooting stars. I also think so. There are many fewer stars on a full moon day, but the effect of natural light illuminating the foreground is better than using flash and other artificial light sources. It is much brighter, the color temperature is also very natural, ISO 400, and the noise is much less. There are fewer stars, so we can’t take pictures of the starry sky. However, if the stars are connected together, it is enough to take a star trail. So now I recommend taking some star trails on half-moon and full-moon days, because there are too many stars to take star trails on new moon days. , a densely packed big disk doesn’t look good either.

You can modify one picture first in Lightroom, and then synchronize the modification settings to all the pictures, or you can overlay and then process the TIFF. I chose to overlay and then process this picture, because I think There are not many things to deal with, just export directly to JPEG. Startrails currently does not support RAW format overlay. It can support TIFF, but I think the full-size TIFF file is a bit large, and it is still a big burden when there are hundreds of pictures. Generally, we use StarTrails, a free German software, to overlay star trails. The download address is: http://startrails.de/Startrails.zip. No installation is required, just unzip it and you can use it.

10. Processing steps

1. As shown in the figure below, open the file to be superimposed in Star-Trails. Here are 64 pictures. Each picture takes 60 seconds to shoot, which is approximately A little over an hour. Startrails supports dark field, which means you can take a completely black picture with the same exposure time. You can take a picture with the lens cap on. I don’t have this good habit, but I will still develop it in the future.

2. Click the 5th icon in the picture below. Generally, I choose the default setting of Light-Screen-Blend, and then click the OK button to start overlaying. The speed of superposition depends on your computer. My computer is very good, so it is very fast. If there are many films and the speed is slow, then drink a cup of coffee and take a rest.

3. When the progress bar below is full, it means the overlay is completed, then click the third icon to save. Finally, there will be a pop-up window to adjust the compression ratio. The default is 90. I usually choose 100. The picture quality will be better. Click the OK button to save. The original image of mine is not rotated, so it is not vertical when it comes out. You can just go to Photoshop or Lightroom and adjust it. That’s it. It’s very simple, isn’t it?

If you want to get a star trail with a starburst effect as shown in the picture below, you can consider using the StarSpokes Pro filter to process the first or last photo that participates in the overlay to make it look like the picture. The effect shown.