How are Milky Way photos with sharp foreground landscapes usually made?
Asked 11/26/2017
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I often see wide-angle astrophotos that include a sharp terrestrial foreground, such as mountains, along with a detailed Milky Way. Since long exposures or star tracking can blur the landscape, and stacking star-aligned frames would also misalign the foreground, how are these images typically captured? Can this be done in a single exposure on a normal tripod, or is compositing separate foreground and sky exposures the usual method?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
8y ago
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Based on what I have learned on astrophotogrphy, it seems like these photographs must be heavily composited and edited.
Is this the case?
It depends. That is one way to do it. It is perfectly possible to take a photo of the Milky Way with mountains in frame without using a moving mount.
This website shows how to take widefield photographs of the Milky Way and terrestrial objects using only a normal tripod and DSLR.
Here's one I took at Zion National Park:
This required the following things:
- A camera that has good low-light capabilities - in this case a Canon 5D Mk III
- A wide, fast lens - A Canon 16-35 f/2.8 L
- A moonless night
- Very little light pollution, but enough terrestrial light to make the mountain visible
- A tripod
- A 25 second exposure
- ISO 6400
- Post-processing to bring out the Milky Way
You can go to more trouble to get even better photographs, though. It is possible to make a panorama of the night sky. It does involve taking multiple very long exposures with a moving tripod, then combining the images together and working on the terrestrial part separately from the star part. But it's not required for all types of photos.
One other thing I forgot to mention is that the time of year also make a huge difference. The above picture was taken in June, in the Northern hemisphere. I have another one I took in November about a mile or two from that one, and while you can see the Milky Way, it's much less spectacular. So wherever you're located, make sure to check whether the things you want to photograph will be visible in the night sky and whether they'll look their best.
Originally by user22895. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user22895
8y ago
0
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Both methods are used.
You can capture a Milky Way scene with a landscape on a normal tripod in a single wide-angle exposure if conditions are good: a dark, moonless sky, low light pollution, a fast wide lens, a camera with strong high-ISO performance, and a short enough exposure to avoid obvious star trails. A typical approach is roughly 20–25 seconds at a wide focal length, wide open aperture, and high ISO, then brighten and refine in post.
For more detailed sky results, many photographers do process the sky and land separately. They may stack multiple sky frames for noise reduction and detail, then use a separate foreground exposure (or foreground processing) and blend the two. If a tracking mount is used for the sky, a separate non-tracked foreground exposure is generally needed because the land would blur on the tracked shot.
So no, these images are not always composites—but compositing is very common, especially when the goal is maximum Milky Way detail and a clean, sharp foreground.
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