First Try At Astrophotography

Astrophotography is gaining considerable popularity recently thanks in no small part to advancements made in the area of highly sensitive, low noise digital sensors. After many years of procrastination, fuelled by a strong disdain for being up all night, spectacular work by the likes of Mark Gee have given me the proverbial kick in the pants I needed to get off the sidelines.

Here is my first attempt.

I'm somewhat happy with it. It isn't a masterpiece, I know that. A long way from it. There is a lot more to learn.

Here is what I did and what I learned.

Tech Details

• Canon EOS 7D
• Undoubtedly a full-frame sensor would be better here, but this is what I have.
• Tokina AT-X 116 AF Pro DX 11-16mm f/2.8
• Again, probably not the best choice but at f/2.8 this is pretty fast and pretty wide.
• 11mm
• f/2.8
• 25.0s
• ISO 3200
• Three days past New Moon
• 9:06PM (about 90 minutes after sunset)

Aperture Adjustments

• Colour Temperature set to 3500K
• Exposure increase by one half stop
• Black point increased

Things Learned / Things To Do Differently Next Time

• Stay up later. It may seem obvious but the Milky Way moves in the sky throughout the night. This shot has the Milky Way barely breaching the horizon. To see it in its full glory I should have shot it at around 2-3am. Not something I'm relishing.
• Composition is just as important in astrophotography as any other photography. Don't think just because the Milky Way is in the frame the shot will be an instant classic. This means finding dramatic locations, with dramatic foregrounds ahead of time.
• Don't get to close to your foreground. The Milky Way is always going to be about the same size no matter where you stand but shoot too close to your foreground and you run the risk of marginalising your primary subject.

Assuming I can drag myself out of bed at some ungodly hour I'll let you know if I've learned from my mistakes in a future post after the next New Moon.