Right were to start
It's not really the best time of year for milky way photo's the optimum time of the year would be June-August really with is a real PITA really as it's also some of the shortest nights :bang: and to get the best photo's you'll want to get as far away from the light pollution as possible, that said it is possible to get a photo of the milky way outside of the above months it just gets a bit harder and it's also possible to get a photo of it in areas with light pollution of course getting to a location with at little pollution as possible will always help
This was actually shot in early November so well out of the optimum time frame and in one of the most light polluted parts of the UK going so it shows it is possible
286/366 (651) by
mwhcvt, on Flickr
I'll admit it's not the most amazing MW photo maybe not even in the top million photo's of the MW but it shows it's possible
Location wise check out this website/map
HERE to get and idea of light pollution levels and then look for a nice location to head to
Now to the actual settings:
On your camera a 50mm lens (eqv. of 80mm), now there is something called the 600 rule for getting an image without the stars starting to trail, this is quite basic but works well, taking the 600 and dividing that by your focal length in 35mm format that will give the number of seconds that you can expose for without star trails showing 600/80 this gives you a 7.5 second exposure to avoid trails
So let's say you need a 7.5 second exposure (round it up to 8 to be easy
you then need to thing about letting in enough light to pick everything up, now this is a balance of aperture and ISO, personally I never shoot wide open on the aperture when using a fast lens, most of my star images have been shot between f/3.5 and f/5.6 but for your instance if we stick to the f/2.8 aperture then you need to set the ISO to a high enough level to expose the scene without noise taking over the scene. It's all about striking up the right balance
personally I'd use a shorter focal length to increase the time you can expose
now how to do it, if you need a time that is available in your cameras programmed shutter speeds then you can set up the exposure values in manual, and then set a shutter delay and press the shutter to then take a exposure 2-10 seconds after you've pressed the shutter giving the camera/tripod to avoid camera shake
Ideally the best solution however would be to use a wired or wireless trigger to fire the camera, there will be a counter on the camera to show how long your exposure has been if your using bulb
but I don't think that you'd ever really need to use bulb as I cannot think of a time when you'd use a exposure longer than 30 seconds unless we start down the telescope and motor mount but that's a whole different ball game
You may find it helpful to give my star trails guide a read as it may answer any other questions you may have you can find details of that in my signature
Matt
MWHCVT
