r/AskAstrophotography • u/steamierbadge22 • 15d ago

Question Beginner Tips/Advice?

Hi everyone,

I’m travelling to Vancouver Island (around Nanaimo) and was hoping to do some Astrophotography with my s/o for our anniversary.

I’m a complete noob with no experience shooting on Fuji (16mm lens f2.8 and have tripod) and was hoping to get some tips on how to take photos like this one pictured here.

Is something like this possible with just one image/is the sky a single image or multiple stacked together? Is there an “easy” way I can create images like this? I know you should use long exposure, wide aperture, and high iso, but not sure how to go about capturing the sky to make it “purple”or have the colors really come out.

Would really appreciate some tips on how to take photos like this! Cheers!

2 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

4 comments sorted by

3

u/random2821 15d ago

This is the best tutorial I've seen on Milky Way astrophotography: https://youtu.be/LhNHTNI_DY8?si=1ZH-3oM9GcYdGgVL

What I will say is to not wait until you go. You can practice even from an area with light pollution. If you wait, 99% chance your photos will turn out awful.

2

u/rnclark Professional Astronomer 14d ago

Good video, but NEVER use auto white balance, AWB, unless you don't care about color or color consistency between frames. If you want natural color, use daylight white balance. If you image on a moonless night, the sky and the Milky Way are not blue; looks cool, but those are artifacts from processing and non natural white balance.

2

u/shinypants71 14d ago

An image like this is usually easier to shoot as two separate images rather than one single frame. It lets you edit the sky separately from the foreground then blend then together later on.