How I got my Milky Way shot on my Fuji XT1 by Alex Houghton www.notmybeiofcha.com
I was camping on the skeleton coast and as it is winter the camp sites are not too busy. Actually we were the only ones there with about 200 possible campsites. We were about 1 hour north of Swakopmund, I found after trying to photograph the milky way every night that just after sunset was my best time to get it all in one panorama. When the milky way got to high I had problems with distortion and stitching so I want it just above the horizon for the ideal shot. I converted to Fuji this year after 10 years of canon for the simple factor of I was tired of carrying around a 12 kg bag with my Canon setup. I loved my Canon set up ands till do but as on the road I wanted a smaller but same quality set up. A fellow photographer introduced Fuji to me and after much research I decided to switch. I love the ease of use, old fashioned look and most of all the weight. I never really was too worried about different brand color profiles but the Fuji blew me away with the in camera look. Working as a commercial photographer I have come accustomed to a lot of editing. But with my personal work going from a heavy photoshop user now I do most my editing within the camera and use photoshop minimally. I love the magic of photoshop but there has been a natural progression to less use. My set up is the Fuji XT1 with the Samyang 12mm and a Slik Mini Pro DQ 2-Section Table-Top Tripod with only a weight of just 0.77 lbs. There are times I miss a good 5 foot tripod for higher angles but for my everyday this is easy to carry round and low point of gravity doesn’t cause much wind resistance. I sat on the beach and took sample shots to get my camera angle right. I wanted a part of the for perspective and make sure the main section of the image didn’t have too much distortion. I find with the angle you need to be careful not to aim it too high as the edges of the lens do seem to have a bend in the image. As a rule I like to do a cross over of 50% of the images to get the best results. Also I only have a small window for the shot so I want the best options for stitching later on. I also have found that a 200 degree range usually keeps the picture with the orignal look. More than that pictures do come out right but foreground usually have unnatural bends. My settings were full manual with the camera in a vertical poisition. With an aperature of F2, 25 seconds shutter speed, foucs on infinity and a 5 second click delay to avoid camera shake. 500 /focal length 18mm (12 mmx 1.5) = 27.77, rounded down to 25 seconds to be safe to avoid star trails. I shot my photos from left to right and on the last shot asked my friends to stand still for 25 seconds staring at the stars. They were champions and stood like statues as I counted them down. It took 2 takes to get the perfect shot and then we cracked a few beers.
I open my images in photoshop and the right is my raw editing where I do most my editing. I basically turn down the whites and raise the blacks. With 15 photos and the slight light pollution and the light of the head lamps, I also fixed the temperture to make them match. Once I opened in photoshop I use the “Photomerge Tool” on auto as is. I don’t click on fix “Geometric Distortion Correction” as I have tried to fix that in camera with the overlap of images and not over doing the camera angle in the first place. Once the image is complete I see my result and crop as personally desired.
The reason I overlap my photos is to cause less distortion, you can shoot with less sometimes I find when I stitch the photos I have to crop too much as the image flares out on the edges. Then you only have the middle section to use and sometimes loose those edges which complete the image. The last step is a slight S curve in photoshop and I’m done! The best way to understand this is by practice, the panorama stitiching I have played round with a lot on street corners, mountains, etc... I just applied it to astrophotography and extremely pleased with the results. I also take single shots so if my panorama’s don’t work the night is not wasted. And sometimes single frame shots with a great foreground work better. I found having an object in the foreground creates contrast and scale.
Most of all have fun with it and experiment and try all your ideas because sometimes the smallest idea comes out brilliant. I hope this is helpful, and to see more examples please visit my website or 500px account. www.notmybeiofcha.com https://500px.com/notmybeiofcha