Above the Clouds: Astrophotography

It’s summertime, which means the Milky Way is out in the night sky just waiting to be photographed! I LOVE to photograph the stars, so I thought I would bring you along with me on a shoot and give some tips in case you ever want to try it out for yourself!

To see some examples of my astrophotography work, check out these prints!

There are only a few things you need to get started with astrophotography: a DSLR or mirrorless camera, a lens with a low aperture, and a tripod. If you can get those three things and a dark sky, you are good to go!

The first thing to do is find the Milky Way. If it’s dark enough, you can see it with the naked eye, otherwise you can use an app like Photopills to help you find it. Pick a composition that you like (it helps to have something in the foreground to give context to the shot), then set up your camera on the tripod.

Once you are set up, use manual focus to focus on a star in the distance. Next, set your shutter speed. The best way to calculate shutter speed is to take 500 divided by your focal length. I use a 24 mm lens, so 500/24 is ~20.8, so I use a 20 second shutter speed.

The next setting to deal with is ISO. This one really depends on the camera, but for my Sony A7iii, I can typically use around 1600 ISO with good results.

The last thing to set is the aperture. This is arguably the most important of the three settings for astrophotography. You need a lens that goes as low as possible. F2.8 is what I generally use, but f2 or lower is even better.

Once you have all your settings dialed in, snap a shot and see how it turns out! Try playing with the framing and the settings until you get something you like. Happy star-gazing!