The Milky Way with a spot of Light Painting on the Isle of Wight

RichieTee

RichieTee

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Rich
Well I was fortunate enough last week to be visiting the Isle of Wight during a time of Little or no moon, clear skies and a very crisp and clean atmosphere. So I thought I better take full advantage of this and get out for a few MW shots.

My interpretation of editing a MW shot may be somewhat different to other peoples but its what I like :).

Critique always welcomed as good or as bad as you want :)

PS. IIRC, These were all shot at ISO 5000 or 6400

1
Needles Milky Way (isle of Wight) by evorichie101, on Flickr

2
The abondoned galaxy by evorichie101, on Flickr

3
The Oratory light painting by evorichie101, on Flickr
 
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Very impressive images, I do like the needles picture.
 
Excellent.

There are a few people here on the Isle of Wight who post Milky Way shots on a Facebook page. It's something I haven't done but I might try one day.

Our local council are about half way through replacing all of the horrible orange street lights with LED lights so we should have even less orange light pollution soon.


Steve.
 
huffy said:
Very impressive images, I do like the needles picture.
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daugirdas said:
Great work. No 2 is very interesting take...
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Dave Steventon said:
Fantastic shots mate would love to shoot something like those .
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Steve Smith said:
Excellent.

There are a few people here on the Isle of Wight who post Milky Way shots on a Facebook page. It's something I haven't done but I might try one day.

Our local council are about half way through replacing all of the horrible orange street lights with LED lights so we should have even less orange light pollution soon.


Steve.
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Thank you all very much for the kind comments :).

The LED lights will certain help Steve. Although I find that light pollution from the mainland seems to interfere more so than the lights from the island. I am fortunate enough to visit regularly so I like to take advantage when it all comes together :)
 
there fantastic, i am also a regular visitor to the island (although the other side to were the needles are located) never tried any night shots while i have been there before certainly something to give a go
 
Copps1991 said:
there fantastic, i am also a regular visitor to the island (although the other side to were the needles are located) never tried any night shots while i have been there before certainly something to give a go
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Thank you :).
If you head anywhere across the south west coast of the island you will find some very dark skies. Just time it right with no moon and no clouds and have a go. I really is amazing what the camera sensor collects over 30 seconds :)
 
RichieTee said:
If you head anywhere across the south west coast of the island you will find some very dark skies. Just time it right with no moon and no clouds and have a go.
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Having lived on the Isle of Wight all of my life (so far) I really should have tried this by now!


Steve.
 
Steve Smith said:
Having lived on the Isle of Wight all of my life (so far) I really should have tried this by now!


Steve.
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Haha. I lived there all my life (until 2012) too and never realised this was possible there. Get out and have a go. Its relatively simple although the editing of the pics I find to
be the tough bit
 
Love the shot through the broken windows
 
Congrats and I am not surprised. From a Canonista that begrudges being inspired by a Nikonite ;-) the light pollution even adds something great capture
 
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X100 said:
Congrats and I am not surprised. From a Canonista that begrudges being inspired by a Nikonite ;-) the light pollution even adds something great capture
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Haha, thank you very much :). I have found that I touch of orange from the light pollution often adds a little vibrance to the scene. To much though and it's bye bye Milky Way haha

bossy said:
Great shots and composition, nicely done
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Thank you very much :)
 
The shot through the broken window works fantastically well, and I also like the first shot as you have got some motion of the sea in with the stillness of the Milky Way which is a little different. The series must have taken a lot of patience, well done.
 
All three are superb shots, the second through the window I can almost see a bearded face in the MW, fav is the third really nice use of light painting far more creative than I could have dreamed up.
 
zaytsev said:
The shot through the broken window works fantastically well, and I also like the first shot as you have got some motion of the sea in with the stillness of the Milky Way which is a little different. The series must have taken a lot of patience, well done.
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Thank you :). There were quite a few shots involved in getting the sea one right. I was either under exposing or over exposing the foreground but managed to salvage that one :).

JakeT1992 said:
3 fantastic shots there. The broken window shot is very good. A fresh take on milky way shooting.
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Thanks Jake. There are a number of photographers on the island that only really shoot the Milky Way so it has been done to death. So my main aim was to try and do something different and I think I just about managed it by adding in some light painting :)

Red9R said:
All three are superb shots, the second through the window I can almost see a bearded face in the MW, fav is the third really nice use of light painting far more creative than I could have dreamed up.
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Thank you :). I had a few ideas in my head of what I wanted to achieve. Had lots if goes at lots of different things. Some worked ok but most attempts failed miserably haha
 
Great shots
 
Fantastic pics.. Seen quite a few on this site that blow me away... Wouldn't even know where to start in trying to get a photo of the night sky like that... Is there a thread on how to go about it? Been looking but can't seem to find one & being new to the site a pointer would help... Once again, damn awesome pics!
 
Spiderdudeuk said:
Fantastic pics.. Seen quite a few on this site that blow me away... Wouldn't even know where to start in trying to get a photo of the night sky like that... Is there a thread on how to go about it? Been looking but can't seem to find one & being new to the site a pointer would help... Once again, damn awesome pics!
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Thank you very much :).
With regards to tips. Of you give me until tomorrow evening I will post up my methods for doing this. If you check tomorrow evening and in haven't posted anything then give me a poke and ile make sure get it sorted ;-)
 
That would be great, we have a house on the Menai Straits and the sky over Anglesey looks great, also I'm heading to Kielder Forest for a long weekend in the future, with being dark sky location was hoping to get some good night shots... :ty:
 
Spiderdudeuk said:
That would be great, we have a house on the Menai Straits and the sky over Anglesey looks great, also I'm heading to Kielder Forest for a long weekend in the future, with being dark sky location was hoping to get some good night shots... :ty:
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Lucky you :). I spend as much time as possible on Anglesey. Absolutely love the place. If you look through the threads on this section I posted another one yesterday I think of the Milky Way at Rhosneigr. Was remarkably dark that night. I would have written you the advice tonight but it didn't fancy doing it on my phone as i tend to get a bit carried away with information and my laptop is at work haha
 
Just seen the photo, very nice.. Lovely place Rhosneigr beach, just avoid the kite surfers!!
 
Spiderdudeuk said:
Just seen the photo, very nice.. Lovely place Rhosneigr beach, just avoid the kite surfers!!
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Right. Im Back and armed with laptop.

So to start with for these particular shots you need a lens that has a biggest aperture of somewhere around the f1.4-f3.5. Camera wise, anything will do, but the better they are at high iso performance then the better the quality (noise wise) of the pics.
So camera settings. You need to use your fast lens at its widest aperture and set the lens manually to infinity. Now this is something that is worth experimenting with during daylight hours as if you don't nail infinity you could end up with soft images but you may not be able to tell on your live view screen and may only become visible once on the PC. By that time they could all be scrap. So have a play during daylight and make a note of exactly where infinity is. A lot of lenses seem to be a good twist back from lock to find it!!
You then need to set a high iso. I usually aim between 3200-6400 but tend to take multiple shots at different iso's of the same composition to cover all eventualities :).
White balance. I do tend to set it to fluorescent but fine tune in lightroom afterwards. Most end up somewhere about 3500 temp and +20 for tint.
Now comes the tricky bit of focal length and length of exposure. There is a basic rule that people use and that is the rule of 500. In fact, I tend to use the rule of 600 now as I have found this renders the stars sharper.
Info on this can be found here as its a bit of a mouthful to explain. http://www.davidkingham.com/blog/2012/11/how-to-avoid-star-trails
So now you have an iso set, lens set to widest aperture and in manual mode with it set to infinity. You also have the exposure time set to coincide with your selected focal length (for example. 25 seconds @14mm)
Your ready to shoot :).

The real skill involves extracting the milky way out of the night sky in your chosen post processing software. If you have a search on youtube, there are stacks of tutorials to suite your processing software but the main things to consider is to only apply clarity locally to the MW (my preference to avoid noise) Also locally apply sharpening and highlights via the brush modes to the MW only. Basically tweak the sliders until you are happy with what you see. It is all down to personal preference obviously and some people like the subtle look whereas someone go for full blown garish. I like to think i'm somewhere in between :). All I can really suggest is to watch plenty of tutorials as there are some great ones on the net and these really will help a lot.

Any more specific questions then feel free to give me a shout :)
 
RichieTee said:
Right. Im Back and armed with laptop.

So to start with for these particular shots you need a lens that has a biggest aperture of somewhere around the f1.4-f3.5. Camera wise, anything will do, but the better they are at high iso performance then the better the quality (noise wise) of the pics.
So camera settings. You need to use your fast lens at its widest aperture and set the lens manually to infinity. Now this is something that is worth experimenting with during daylight hours as if you don't nail infinity you could end up with soft images but you may not be able to tell on your live view screen and may only become visible once on the PC. By that time they could all be scrap. So have a play during daylight and make a note of exactly where infinity is. A lot of lenses seem to be a good twist back from lock to find it!!
You then need to set a high iso. I usually aim between 3200-6400 but tend to take multiple shots at different iso's of the same composition to cover all eventualities :).
White balance. I do tend to set it to fluorescent but fine tune in lightroom afterwards. Most end up somewhere about 3500 temp and +20 for tint.
Now comes the tricky bit of focal length and length of exposure. There is a basic rule that people use and that is the rule of 500. In fact, I tend to use the rule of 600 now as I have found this renders the stars sharper.
Info on this can be found here as its a bit of a mouthful to explain. http://www.davidkingham.com/blog/2012/11/how-to-avoid-star-trails
So now you have an iso set, lens set to widest aperture and in manual mode with it set to infinity. You also have the exposure time set to coincide with your selected focal length (for example. 25 seconds @14mm)
Your ready to shoot :).

The real skill involves extracting the milky way out of the night sky in your chosen post processing software. If you have a search on youtube, there are stacks of tutorials to suite your processing software but the main things to consider is to only apply clarity locally to the MW (my preference to avoid noise) Also locally apply sharpening and highlights via the brush modes to the MW only. Basically tweak the sliders until you are happy with what you see. It is all down to personal preference obviously and some people like the subtle look whereas someone go for full blown garish. I like to think i'm somewhere in between :). All I can really suggest is to watch plenty of tutorials as there are some great ones on the net and these really will help a lot.

Any more specific questions then feel free to give me a shout :)
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WOW.... This is fantastic information and I really do greatly appreciate it. I have been a member of many forums through the years, from motorcycling through to shooting (clay pigeon). Without any shadow of a doubt the has been the most friendly and helpful in every way.

I shall be giving this a try, a read and a good few viewings on YouTube. But you are a top man and I look forward to seeing more of you photos in the future! :plus1::ty::clap:
 
Spiderdudeuk said:
WOW.... This is fantastic information and I really do greatly appreciate it. I have been a member of many forums through the years, from motorcycling through to shooting (clay pigeon). Without any shadow of a doubt the has been the most friendly and helpful in every way.

I shall be giving this a try, a read and a good few viewings on YouTube. But you are a top man and I look forward to seeing more of you photos in the future! :plus1::ty::clap:
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No problem. Glad to help :). If you ever fancy popping out and having a go over Anglesey at any point the let me know. I usually head over that way every 2-3 weeks although I will possibly only get another 2-3 trips this year I think.
 
I'm just starting to head down this road so finding your thread is really great. Lovely pics especially through the broken glass.
I live in North Yorkshire and our sky's are really dark so hopefully soon ill give this a good go.
Thanks for the inspection from your pics.Cheers
 
Dinozorr said:
I'm just starting to head down this road so finding your thread is really great. Lovely pics especially through the broken glass.
I live in North Yorkshire and our sky's are really dark so hopefully soon ill give this a good go.
Thanks for the inspection from your pics.Cheers
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No Worries Jason and good luck with it. Like wise, if there is anything you wan tto know then give me a shout. Im not the grand master of night photography by any means but I may be able to help haha
 
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