Astrophotography India - Shoot Milky way using kit lens

 Basics

 Astrophotography is a fairly popular genre of digital photography. Advancement in digital photography has allowed photographers to capture beautiful night skies. In the early days I was quiet astonished to see milkyway photographs and always wanted to capture amazing night sky. 

India is a bit tricky place to find a dark place in my opinion. In US, especially west coast has a lot of opportunities to photograph milkyway because low light pollution. India has lots and lots of town and villages which leaves very little room for such places. Such places are either a part of national park of restricted area. In the upcoming sections I will try to explain the process to capture milkyway. Process to capture star lapse is similar. 

All images are captured by canon 18-55 kit lens with entry level DSLR body.







Planning

Scouting for a perfect photography place is a key for capturing milkyway. PhotoPills application can be very helpful to find the perfect location and preplan photoshoot. The first and the most important thing to consider is the place with low light pollution. Darksitefinder is a popular website which lets you find a suitable location based on light pollution.

Time of year also has a role to play in the photograph as well. In northern hemisphere, galactic core of milkyway is visible from March to October. The window in which the galactic core is visible can be found on photoPills app. 

After finalizing the place to photograph milkyway, make sure to check moonphase on the web. Milkyway photographs on new moon produces most stunning images as moon acts as another light source. It is ideal to shoot these photographs with clear skies so also check for clouds on the weather apps. 

Make sure to reach the spot earlier to find a good foreground subject and lock focus on your lens. I will cover it in bit more detail in the photography section.

Recommended Places in India

  1. Ladakh
  2. Spiti
  3. Greater rann of Kutchh/Little rann of Kutchh

Photographing milky way with basic camera gear(Kit lens)

I have captured milkyway only once and it was an amazing experience. I used very basic gears to capture milkyway(Canon 550D with kit lens) . Here is a list of equipment required to capture milkyway:

  1. DSLR camera
  2. Good lens (Ideally with low f-stop number)
  3. tripod
  4. Shutter release/Intervalometer 
  5. Headlamp/torch 
  6. Extra batteries

Once you reach the location before dark, place the tripod and setup focus to infinite. After finalizing the focus, switch it to manual focus so it does not get changed after dark. Wait for the window in which the galactic core appears. Another important thing is to capture photos in RAW which makes it easy to reduce noise and correct white balance in post processing.

Start off by the following setting in manual mode:

  1. f-stop: 3.5 (Lowest possible for the lens to allow max light to hit sensor)
  2. Shutter speed: 20-30 Seconds (Use 500 Rule- Do not afraid to break :) )
  3. ISO: 1600

Depending on the result, increase ISO. With entry level DSLRs there would be some noise which can be corrected in post processing. There are tons of videos on youtube to process such images. 



 


Location: Acadia National Park, Maine, USA

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