“Random question; Would you be interested in driving out a dark night to try and photograph the milky way?”
I recently got that question from a fellow photography friend. Either it’s a really corny pickup line or it’s a serious question… One does not exclude the other though….
The answer was “Yeah… why not!”… And so we drove out in the darkness to a remote spot in Denmark and pointed our cameras towards space. We were slightly embarrassed by our strange slightly geeky behavior, so we made the deal that we would tell no one, unless it turned out cool and was pretty fun. And actually we did have fun, we did get some decent shots (in our own opinion that is). We were both very surprised that we were able to capture the stars with our rather simple equipment. Besides, it was nice spending time outside under starlit summer night sky talking cameras, photography and eating snacks.
I think I manage to capture some decent shots as a first time astrophotographer. My friend is a great photographer and is currently working hard on a 365 challenge. Follow his progress and portfolio here and see his take on photographing the milky way.
I used my Fuji X-T1 and the XF14mmF2.8 R prime for the event. Is it a great camera for photographing the stars? No it’s not the greatest but it’s decent. You can read more about Fuji X-T1 as camera for astrophotography here.
Milky way and astrophotography
I am not going any further into the technicalities of astrophotography because it is as complicated as any other genre. But I do encourage you to try it your self, it’s actually not that difficult getting usable photographs. Google the subject and you will find a lot of guides and descriptions on how to start, what to bring, basic equipment, considerations and beautiful photographs.
Have you had any great experience with this genre?
