Birth of a Milky Way + Edit

This is one from shooting with Ben at the Skyline Overlook a few weeks back. I was shooting with my Nikon D850 and the Sigma 14mm f1.8 in a wider open area where I could work some pano shots of the Milky Way without issue from the foreground. But I had found this cool set of rocks that I thought made for an interesting foreground so I set up the Sony A6400 with the Samyang 12mm f2.0 in place to shoot these rocks where the Milky Way core would be rising later in the evening.

I didn't get a lot of shots from this spot as I was focusing mainly with the D850. But it was about 40 yards south of my position and I would run over every so often and trigger some shots.

This is ISO 1600 at f2.0 and at 25 secs. It's a single shot, and I think it turned out kind of cool. Just a whisper of the Milky Way showing at this time but the stars make up for it I think. We had no moon to help us, so the brighter rocks in the foreground I believe are not actually brighter, just a different color.

I can tell the difference between these files and the ones from the D850, but I would say if someone is on a budget and needs an inexpensive camera and wants to shoot the Milky Way you can't beat the Sony A6400 and the Samyang 12mm f2.0 as a powerful night time combination.

All comments are welcome,

Jim

I realized that the Original was over sharpened. I need to get used to how much to sharpen the A6400 files, so I added an edit without the sharpening for the web.

Original



Edit - No Sharpening

That made a pretty nice star shot and I like the foreground lighting.

This is really nice Jim, and you fixed the Hanksville/route 24 light pollution perfectly.

AlanLichty said:

That made a pretty nice star shot and I like the foreground lighting.

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Thanks Alan. I wasn't necessarily expecting much, I really liked the foreground where I set up, but I was trying mainly to get some shots before it got too dark since there was no moon and I still hadn't figured out how to use the Bulb mode on the Sony A6400 yet.

I have finally tracked down some remote releases for the Sony A6400 so I can next time do exposures longer then 30 secs if it's dark and I need a longer exposure for the ground layer, but there has been limited info on the Sony A6400, and without a printed manual it was a little hard to figure out. But I persevered and figured it out.

Ben Egbert said:

This is really nice Jim, and you fixed the Hanksville/route 24 light pollution perfectly.

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Thank you Ben! It wasn't easy to fix it, but I have attempted enough photos from that view now that I think I have a routine down to clean those up. But it is for sure a pain.

I like the lighting & clouds a lot. Has a really nice quiet night feel to it.

MonikaC said:

I like the lighting & clouds a lot. Has a really nice quiet night feel to it.

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Thanks Monika. It was a really nice quiet night. There isn't much else like that wide open space there.

Very nice. Good balance of interesting foreground (with good lighting to see details, but retain the night feel). I don't think every good astro picture needs the Milky Way - the stars and clouds work great in this one.

Jim Dockery said:

Very nice. Good balance of interesting foreground (with good lighting to see details, but retain the night feel). I don't think every good astro picture needs the Milky Way - the stars and clouds work great in this one.

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Thanks Jim!

It’s funny, for years all I got at night was the stars. As a society of photographers we have somehow gotten fixated on the Milky Way over the last few years it seems. To the degree where it almost feels like if you don’t have the Milky Way in your photo it’s a letdown and it’s a failure.

Now I know I go after the Milky Way as much as anyone, so I need to look in the mirror too perhaps.

I really like the tones of this one, Jim. Believe it or not, I do not have a singe Milky Way image in my portfolio. I am really behind the times.

Douglas Sherman said:

I really like the tones of this one, Jim. Believe it or not, I do not have a singe Milky Way image in my portfolio. I am really behind the times.

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Thanks Doug! Yeah it’s amazing that you don’t have any Milky Way photos. But then again you have so many other awesome photos!

JimFox said:

Thanks Doug! Yeah it’s amazing that you don’t have any Milky Way photos. But then again you have so many other awesome photos!

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Thanks, Jim. What a nice thing to say.

Sony A6400 !?
Are you switching to the Dark Side?

I am not a big fan of too subtle MW shots, but i am not an expert, just had a third session recently, it looks a bit noisy and the FG a bit overcrowded to my taste, but it works overall...

Cheers.

lionking said:

Sony A6400 !?
Are you switching to the Dark Side?

I am not a big fan of too subtle MW shots, but i am not an expert, just had a third session recently, it looks a bit noisy and the FG a bit overcrowded to my taste, but it works overall...

Cheers.

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Ha ha, thanks Andrey!

I am not switching over. But I trail run, and while I can run with my Full Frame Nikons, and have many many times, I thought that a smaller camera would make it more convenient. And plus I have been getting out and doing more Street Photography with @David S so the smaller camera is easier to be inconspicuous. Part of shots like these is just testing this camera out still and seeing it's limits and how it could work as a backup to my backup camera.

As for noise though, there really is no noise to speak of in this one. It's not as Noise free as my Nikon D850 but it's really really good. I think ISO 3200 is the limit I would set for noise tolerance with it. ISO 6400 I tried on it and that is really noisy.

Thanks!

I like the composition on this...makes me feel like i'm flying over the canyon.

I like the framing and lighting on this shot a TON! There does seem to be a lot of noise in the sky though especially for such a low iso.. IS that due to the exposure time? Its hard to look closely since the picture is so tiny.. Seriously this picture is 1/4 the size of my monitor, can you upload a higher resolution?

Maybe its just me but this is basically what your shot looks like on my pc. I am not running any crazy resolution or anything, 1920 x 1280
I can't tell if those spots are stars or noise...

David S said:

I like the framing and lighting on this shot a TON! There does seem to be a lot of noise in the sky though especially for such a low iso.. IS that due to the exposure time? Its hard to look closely since the picture is so tiny.. Seriously this picture is 1/4 the size of my monitor, can you upload a higher resolution?

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Thanks Dave, I am glad you like this.

There isn't really any noise, it's pretty clean looking. When there is noise at night though it's typically the result of the camera Sensor and how it's designed to handle High ISO and how much High ISO.

And sorry... I do my photos at 800 pix wide for the web. You aren't the first to ask, but that's just where I am stuck at, too many years of it at that Resolution to change now.

is that your shadow on the rock? looks like a fire hydrant

Sunny Sra said:

is that your shadow on the rock? looks like a fire hydrant

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I saw that, not sure. There was no moon up, it was well past sunset. So while it does look like a shadow, those rocks are very strangely composed, so I am thinking it just must be the way the rock is?