Beginner Milky Way Sigma 20mm 1.4

Craig_85

Craig_85

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Craig
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Taken in the light polluted South East with my new Sigma Art lens. Had to stop down to f2.8 to get rid of coma entirely and used 15seconds for no trailing. Could get away with 20seconds but at full resolution you can tell there difference. 6d ISO 6400, I am new to this so be interested if the settings are correct/could be improved.

url=https://flic.kr/p/MLdfG9]
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[/url]Milky Way by Craig Hollis, on Flickr

Found the processing very difficult, so really looking for any tips/pointers in that respect.

Thanks for looking.
 
That's a cracking result for light polluted skies Craig. Looks processed well enough to me. You can push this sort of shot a bit in PP, and you see a lot heavily pushed, but it's all down to the way you see it for your shot.
This is great though, picking up a LOT Of stars there too
 
MattyW said:
That's a cracking result for light polluted skies Craig. Looks processed well enough to me. You can push this sort of shot a bit in PP, and you see a lot heavily pushed, but it's all down to the way you see it for your shot.
This is great though, picking up a LOT Of stars there too
Click to expand...

Thanks Matt, appreciate the feedback. Not for Milky Way as such but I'm off to Iceland this winter so it is nice to know I have a lens that will perform and have some settings as a start point.
 
Looks much better when looked at in flick but still there is so much detail in this kind of stuff it is hard to share to any size on the web!
 
That's a good result, very good (y)
 
A good shot of the Milky Way especially with LP. Shots like this would benefit from some foreground interest. If you use Lightroom for PP then you can download free Milky Way presets of which some are very good. 1 click gets you there ready for final tweaking to your liking.
 
Looking good Craig, which sigma is it, I'm actually thinking about getting a dedicated lens for night shots.
Just read title lol, 20mm 1.4! I was looking at 15-18mm as have a 21mm zeiss.
 
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Lots of videos on the web re processing the Milky Way as a starting point. Then you can fine tune to suit your preferences. One thing to consider is stacking images for noise reduction. Might be a bit more time consuming but makes a significant difference to the noise., much better than noise reduction on a single image. Try Lonely Speck for video tutorials.
 
Damned good effort I say. But then I'm in awe of astro togs work. Here's one taken by photographer Daniel Korden in Bolivia. (low light pollution!) I was pretty stunned with it. Hope it also inspires you too!

Night-Shot.jpg
 
Neil Burnell said:
Looking good Craig, which sigma is it, I'm actually thinking about getting a dedicated lens for night shots.
Just read title lol, 20mm 1.4! I was looking at 15-18mm as have a 21mm zeiss.
Click to expand...

Thanks Neil. As you have sussed this was with the 20mm. As someone who I believe stitches shots together I've got to say you might also like the 35mm Art. Personally I struggled with the narrower field of view but it is technically better than the 20mm for astro I find. Something to do with the larger true aperture but also coma is buried by f2.2...

Gaz J said:
Lots of videos on the web re processing the Milky Way as a starting point. Then you can fine tune to suit your preferences. One thing to consider is stacking images for noise reduction. Might be a bit more time consuming but makes a significant difference to the noise., much better than noise reduction on a single image. Try Lonely Speck for video tutorials.
Click to expand...

Thanks Gaz, stacking for noise reduction is something I have dabbled with manually before as a smart object in PS with a median blend mode. What I am really after is software (ideally free) for apple mac that will automate that process, and also help with amazing panos like @Nick Owen shows above, and allow me to use the 35mm I mentioned to Neil. Do you know of any?

Thanks Craig.
 
Nice one Craig ,
just got interested in astro photography as well so I'm learning my self
 
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