I recommend a tripod with a ballhead that lets you use your camera in a vertical orientation. Any tripod will work here for this exercise, just make sure it’s adequately stable for your camera and shooting conditions. I use a compact Sirui T-025X carbon fiber tripod which is great for more compact mirrorless cameras like the a7S. The final piece of the equipment is a tripod. A few recommended “standard” lenses for astrophotography are below: For this example shot I used a Sony a7S mounted with a Voigtlander 50mm f/1.1 Nokton Len (Amazon) / (B&H). Lower f/number lenses also allow us to “stop down” to a higher f/number to reduce vignetting (dark corners on the edge of the image). Results will be best with a “fast” lens that has an aperture f/number of f/2.8 or lower, the lower the f/number, the larger the opening in the lens and the more light the lens will be able to collect. If you’re using a Micro 4/3 or a more common APS-C sensor camera you’ll want something in the 24mm to 40mm range. For full-frame sensor cameras this is usually anything from about 40mm to 60mm. We’ll want to use a fast “standard” lens. I’ve even been caught using point-and-shoots and smartphones from time to time. That said, you don’t need anything more than an entry level digital SLR or interchangeable lens camera with a Micro 4/3, APS-C or full-frame sensor. It’s probably the best camera body I’ve used for astrophotography yet because it has a very high gain sensor ( it goes to ISO 409600 ) and that makes it possible to easily frame the shot in pitch black conditions using fast lenses. The Gear Cameraįor this particular shot, I used the full-frame Sony a7S (Amazon) / (B&H). Camera technology has not yet offered a digital 6×6 medium format camera so we’re limited to stitching together frames with a smaller format sensor in order to try and achieve the same look and level of resolution. A more traditional wide panorama of the arch of the Milky Wayįor the image in this tutorial, I wanted instead to create a medium format 6×6 look, reminiscent of the look of the square format photos from a Hasselblad 500 Series camera. This time we’ll use similar techniques using a narrow angle lens instead. It’s more common to see astrophotographers stitching wide angle images together to create a large sweeping image of the Milky Way arching across the sky. Panorama stitching can help us break from the typical convention of needing to use a fast wide angle lens for astrophotography. Likewise, in my Ho w to Pick a Lens for Milky Way Photography tutorial, I showed readers that the best lenses for astrophotography are typically fast wide angle lenses. I usually don’t suggest using longer lenses like a 50mm because the field of view of a 50mm lens is narrower than we usually want for capturing the Milky Way: it can capture only a small portion of the night sky. “Heavens Above Her” was one of my most popular images on 500px, back when 500px was a thing. What’s not immediately apparent from the image is that it’s actually a two row, 11 exposure panorama stitch made with a narrower 50mm lens to give a medium format look. It’s one of my most popular images, was a top photo on 500px when it was released and it’s the title photo for my Astrophotography 101 tutorial series. The example photograph for this tutorial is an image of my girlfriend Diana standing below the Milky Way at Trona Pinnacles, California. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how I use standard prime lenses like a 50mm to make medium format sized astrophotos with a regular small format camera.
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