How to photograph the milky way - a Beginners guide

Tutorials
Written By Mohib Khan
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How to shoot the Milky Way

Here’s a simple guide on how to photograph the Milky Way. This is the single exposure technique and is helpful if you’re just starting your Astro journey. Use a website like Light Pollution Map to find dark spots near you. All my shots are from either Bortle 3 or 4.


What you need

  1. A camera (obviously)

  2. A lens - preferably a wide angle 12mm-35mm. A lens with a wide aperture f/2.8 or wider. It’s okay if you don’t have it. f/3.5 or f/4 will work too.

  3. A tripod - we are doing long exposures, so we want to be as shakeless (not a word) as possible

  4. A remote (we don’t want the camera to shake after we press the shutter)

How you do it

  1. If you want to find compositions, arrive before sunset. Since we are shooting at night, our primitive eyes can’t see anything unless you bring night vision goggles.

  2. Focus - the most important aspect. It is recommended that you dim the brightness of your cameras live view (to preserve night vision) but not so much, that you don’t see the stars. In live view, find a bright star zoom in on it using live view magnification. Make sure your lens is set to manual focus. Turn the focus ring left or right, until the star is a small dot. Zoom back out and make sure you don’t bump the focus ring. If your stars are the size of golf balls, repeat until they are not.

  3. Bump the ISO to 3200 but don’t be afraid to push it to 5000 or even 8000. Modern cameras handle noise very well. Since, we are doing single exposures, noise will be an issue but more on that later.

  4. If you’ve not guessed so far, your camera should be in manual mode. Change the shutter speed to whatever 300/your focal length comes to. If you’re shooting at 14mm then 300/14 gives you 21 sec. Calculators help. There’s also the 500 or the 400 rule, but being conservative here actually helps. There is less chance of star trailing.

  5. Fire away with an external remote. If you don’t have one, then set the camera delay after pressing the shutter to 2 or 5 seconds.

Where to find it

 Milky Way in the northern hemisphere rises in south east and sets in south west. So if you know where south is, you should be good. Milky Way core is visible from March till October but the best times to photograph it is during summer. You’ve got more time. 

Quick checklist

  1. Camera in manual mode

  2. Lens set to manual focus

  3. ISO to 3200

  4. Lens aperture to f/2.8 or the lowest value.

  5. Shutter speed to 300/focal length.

  6. Focus on a bright star.

  7. Take a test shot.

  8. Never rely on your LCD preview. Always check your histogram. Your histogram should start from extreme left, peak at 1/3rd of the way and dip gradually at almost mid point.

Helpful Tip

Always download an offline map of the area you are going. There is hardly any cell service in some of the darker remote areas and if you have an offline map, you won’t get lost.

Mohib Khan