Photograph the night sky

By: Tanner Wendell

What you need

• Clear moonless night. Some clouds can be really

cool too!


• Camera.


• Lens wider than 24mm.


• Tripod. 


• Warm clothes.


• Something to sit on, insulated pad or camp chair. 


• Headlight, Flashlight or phone.


• Star, moon and sun tracking app. Sky view is what

I use, let's you track exactly where the moon and
sun will set and rise. 

What you need (continued)

• Camera remote or intervalometer controller.


• Extra batteries and portable chargers for phone. 


• Caffeine
Mindset and Preparation
Before talking about settings it’s important to set
yourself up for success. Go on a drive to
somewhere truly dark, with no light pollution.  Be
safe, let someone know where you are going, and
carry bear spray if you're worried about the
darkness :) Scout your location where your
subject will be. Be aware of the surroundings for
your safety. Bring a warm jacket or something to
sit on because good star photos take time,
patience and most of all, make sure to enjoy the
amazing views while you photograph them.
When to go
Cloudless, moonless nights, between March
and October in the Northern Hemisphere and
Feb-October in the Southern Hemisphere are
the best time to photograph the Milky Way.
The brightest section of the Milky Way known
as the galactic center is more visible when the
Moon is on a New Moon cycle. Use an app to
check the Moonset and Moonrise so you can
know when to expect dark skies. Dark skies are
best.  
Where to go
Being in the mountains is great! I live in Seattle
and I’m surrounded by them. Being out in the
mountains helps to lower light pollution, but
sometimes the mountains are so big they can
block parts of the Milky Way. Also know that
higher elevation will make the Milky Way more
visible.
Star knowledge top tips
• Clean your lens first! 


• Bring a sturdy tripod and a tripod head that locks firmly in place. I use a heavy duty Magnesium Ball
Head from Manfrotto.


• Get out of the wind. The wind can shake the camera, find a spot that's less to prone to wind and placing
your tripod lower will make the tripod more stable and more hidden from the wind.


• Wrap your strap around the tripod head or remove it so they aren't  dangling in the air shaking your
camera with the wind. Also as a good rule of thumb, make sure your tripod plate is firmly seeded into the
head. You don't want to drop your camera because you didn't mount the plate correctly. I wrap my
camera strap as a safety measure. 


• Take off your lens hood as well, since it adds more surface area for the wind to shake the camera. 


• Using Apps to find the path of the stars, moon or sun to be prepare for the night's events. 

Star knowledge top tips (continued)
• Some prebuilt modes can affect sharpness, like noise reduction, in camera stabilization, lens
stabilization. Turn them off for the best results. 


• To eliminate hand shake, Use a timer mode, remote or mirror lock up. 


• The shutter can add camera shake! Use mirror lock up with a 1 or 2 second delay so you can eliminate
handshake as well as shutter slap shake. Depends on your camera. 


• Shoot all night, sometimes you get lucky and you can get shooting stars, plus you get to watch the
amazing night turn into a beautiful sunrise! If you shoot all night, you can make a timelapse or a star trail
photo of the entire night!
Focus in the dark
Manual focus will require you to Use your flashlight
to see. To set your infinity focus manually on the
lens, lineup the center of the infinity logo with the
centerline of the distance indicator on your lens
barrel. (The little glass window on the lens) If your
camera doesn't have a distance indicator window
on the barrel of the lens you will need to use live
view. Turn on live view, zoom in to 100% and pull
your focus manually.  Since it will be dark, you’ll
have to set up a flashlight in the distance or point
at a bright light. If you do have a distance indicator
on your lens, make sure the Lens is properly
calibrated at infinity. If your photos still aren't sharp,
every lens varies and some lenses aren't perfectly
lined up at infinity. One tip is use auto focus during
daytime, and take note about where your lens’s true
infinity is.
500 Rule
Use the 500 rule to know when star trails will happen. 500 divided by focal length will
tell you how long your shutter can be before stars become trails. If you want sharp
stars, do the math and don't shoot longer. If you want star trails than ignore this rule.
Example for 24mm lens. 500/24=20.83 If you shoot longer than 20 seconds with a
24mm lens the stars will be trails. If you don't have a wider lens, you can follow this
same rule but you'll get better results with a 24 or wider.
Settings
• Wide lens. Fisheye, 16, 20, 24mm lenses. It's possible with 35mm but won't reveal much of the sky.


• Manual mode. You need to control everything here, the camera won't know what to do with the
darkness. 


• Don't use your onboard flash, use flashlights for light painting. 


• ALWAYS shoot star photos in RAW.


• ISO 1600-3200. You can shoot higher but I personally don’t like shooting higher than 3200, even with my
d810.


• Use the fastest and most Wide open aperture to capture as much of the darkness as possible. 2.8 or
faster. 


• Longest possible shutter speed with the 500 rule. I typically shoot at 25 seconds with my 20mm f1.8
nikon or 30 seconds with my 10.5mm fisheye.
Settings (continued)
• WB to Tungsten or close to 3200k. Auto is fine, but I like the colder tones from 3200 and its easy
to correct in Post if its too blue for your taste.


• Turn off Long exposure Noise Reduction. I prefer using photoshop for that and it slows down The
process. 


• Turn off Auto Focus


• Turn off VR or IS on lens. 


• Turn off your camera photo review, so that once you start shooting, you wont have to keep re-
adjusting your eyes to the darkness and the bright screen every time you take a photo. Get your
settings dialed in, then let the camera work, shoot photos, and enjoy the view. This will also save
your battery. 


• Shoot a balanced exposure, too under-exposed will be grainy in the shadows and too over-
exposed will be hard to save the highlights.
Composition
As far as composition, it's up to your creativity.
When shooting stars, use interesting foreground
elements and get creative. I like to find solo trees
with really interesting silhouettes or mountains.
Some really cool photos can be done with
reflections of stars on water, or when you can get
the Milky Way lined up with mountains. Take the
time to get the shot!

Other things you can do when shooting stars is

using your flashlight to lightpaint or making a steel
wool spinner. Just be careful you don't catch
anything on fire. I personally prefer not to use
lightpainting but it can be a fun experiment.
Editing

When it comes to editing star photos in lightroom or camera raw, I recommend

using a combination of boosting clarity, whites and highlights and fine tuning
blacks, contrast, and exposure. The shadow slider will add a lot of color noise if you
use too much. If you photographed in tungsten, warm up the photo a bit, but I like a
colder look. Don’t go too heavy on the clarity or you will start to degrade the quality
of the image and your blacks and shadows will start to look muddy and extra grainy.
(I could share some more here if you want)
Composite

Some images during the night are impossible with just one image. Like HDR photos
I use composites and stitched images for a scene. On really dark nights with a great
Milky Way, the foreground elements and mountains can be too dark to capture even
with long exposures and high ISO. If you wait for the moon to rise or for the hour
before sunrise, you can photograph the same scene with your stars and combine
the two images in photoshop. When shooting for composites, I will make my
composition sky heavy for the top section of the image, and when the foreground is
brighter, will shoot the details of the bottom. I treat them as two sections of my
composition, foreground and subject, and my stars as my background element.
Basically a 2 image or more panoramic stitched composite. This method is more
advanced and will require some photoshop knowledge. (Hey Rodrigo, should we
include this section? I can show a edit of both images and both combined.)
Conclusion
Enjoy the views, and be patient. Be
prepared for the long haul, even staying
out all night to watch the sunrise is
something really magical and if you're
staying up till 3 in the morning to
photograph the stars, you may as well
wait for the beautiful light of the next
day!