Greetings from Down Under

It’s hard enough sticking to my (self-imposed) weekly blog schedule when I’m home and just doing the daily stuff necessary to keep my business running. But for the last week Don Smith and I have been cavorting about the New Zealand countryside with a dozen awestruck photographers. So I’ve dusted off a still relevant blog post from 4 years ago, updated it, and added a brand new image (from this trip) and description.

What’s my problem?

I share a lot of Milky Way images (and when I say Milky Way, I’m referring to the brilliant core of our home galaxy). But then it seems does everyone else. And when I look at some of the other visually dazzling Milky Way images posted online, I realize I’m working at something of a disadvantage—not because of deficient equipment (not even close), a physical or mental handicap (though as the years spin by…), or even because I think the world is unfair (maybe it is, but it’s been pretty good to me). No, my disadvantage is solely the result of self-imposed “rules” that prevent me from photographing anything that can’t be captured with a single click.

Single-click shooting means no focus stacking, no HDR, no blending separately captured foreground and sky. In other words, if I can’t get what I want in one frame, I don’t get it. It’s not that I think there’s anything wrong with combining images—image blending is a tremendous tool that allows digital photographers to transcend the limitations of film photography. And it’s not because blending is “too technical” for me—having spent 20 years working in the tech industry, I know my way around a computer and have actually played a fair amount with blending images (it’s not rocket science). No, I don’t blend images simply because, as beautiful as they might be, I get no personal satisfaction from results that feel artificial to me. And if photography doesn’t make you happy, what’s the point?

Every time I bring this up, someone gets defensive, feeling like I’m saying that there’s something wrong with blending images. There isn’t!* I enjoy viewing the work of photographers who blend images to elevate their art. So if you blend and enjoy it, please go forth and blend to your heart’s content (and keep those defensive comments to yourself). This is about me, and what makes me happy.

*As long as it’s not used to deceive.

Milky Way capture

I’m frequently asked about my processing for Milky Way images, and I’ve always been a little reluctant to share a lot because I’m not an expert, I don’t blend, and my Milky Way workflow is always a work in process. Nevertheless, I’m asked enough that I’ve decided it might nevertheless help for me to share my overall processing mindset and approach. (Plus, it might help others to understand why my images aren’t as “stunning” as the images of those who blend.)

In many ways I still consider myself a film shooter, albeit with an upgrade to a digital camera. Processing, though not my favorite part of photography, is an essential digital windfall that enables me to extract results from the photons I capture, results that were never possible with film (especially for those of us who shot only color film/transparencies). Like most digital photographers, I couldn’t succeed without processing—the alternative is to let the camera or computer make processing decisions, and that’s control I don’t want to relinquish. And given the challenges of minimal light photography, processing is doubly important for Milky Way images.

Given that I don’t blend images (for Milky Way photography that’s usually one exposure for the foreground and another for the sky), I start with a raw file that needs help. A lot of help. I like foreground detail in my night images, which requires me to compromise with a less than ideal f-stop, shutter speed, and (especially) ISO to gather enough light. And even with these compromises, the image straight from the camera is still far darker and noisier than ideal.

The right gear

First, even with all the skill and processing software you can muster, if you’re going to photograph the Milky Way with one click, you need to have the camera and lens to do it. On a moonless night light capture is king, which means using a camera able to return relatively clean results at extreme ISOs (up to 12,800) with a very fast, wide lens—24mm and f/2.8 is okay, but wider and faster is better.

For years my Milky Way body has been some version of the Sony a7S series (a7S, a7S II, a7S III)—most recently the Sony a7S III (a truly remarkable low light camera), while my night lens has been one of the following: Sony 24mm f/1.4 GM, Sony 20mm f/1.8 G, or Sony 14mm f/1.8 GM. But an equipment change may be afoot—details below.

Exposure compromise

My processing choices depend a lot on my exposure choices, which as I said earlier, are all compromises. For example, with my 14mm at f/1.8 wide open, I can usually keep the ISO in the 3200 to 6400, and my shutter speed to 15 seconds—quality compromises for sure (high ISO means high noise, longer shutter speeds mean star motion), but the results are certainly acceptable. It might help to know that when I photograph the Milky Way, I usually give each composition a variety of exposure settings and choice the best one later, when I can see the images on my computer.

It starts with noise reduction

For all of my images, my standard noise processing is Topaz DeNoise AI Photoshop plugin. I used to run my Milky Way images through DxO PhotoLab 2, but later versions of DeNoise have been so good that I now skip the DXO step.

In Topaz I magnify the view to 100% (and sometimes 200%) and play with the Noise Reduction and Recover Detail sliders until I’m confident I’ve found the combination that maximizes noise reduction without muddying the detail. I’ve had the most success with the Low Light, Standard, and Severe Noise panels (in that order), but your results may vary so experiment with all the options to find the panels that work for you.

The method behind my madness

Processing is where things start to get more vague because my approach is less an explicit series of steps than it is searching for the best way to achieve the results I want, steps that can vary a lot from image to image. Sometimes I can achieve most of what I want in Lightroom, other times I lean more heavily on Photoshop—usually it’s a fairly even balance of the two.

Given my hit-and-miss approach, it’s probably most important to explain what makes a successful Milky Way image. Here’s what I’m going for:

• Minimal noise: Asked and answered (Topaz DeNoise AI)
• The right sky color: As far as I’m concerned, the color of the sky in a Milky Way image the photographer’s creative choice because at night the human eye doesn’t capture enough light to discern color. If you look at my recent Milky Way images, you’ll see that I tend to avoid a blue/cyan sky in favor of something more blue/purple. It just feels more night-like to me. But that’s just my opinion and I empower you to go with whatever color makes you happy (more on that below). And lately I’ve been skewing away from blue and toward black with just a hint of blue—and no cyan.
• Foreground detail: The amount varies with the foreground, and how much light I can give it without too much noise.
• Uniform sky tone and hue (as much as possible): I don’t like a huge difference between the sky near the horizon and up toward the top of the frame
• The stars should pop: I want the sky to be fairly dark, but the stars to stand out.
• No part of the Milky Way should be blown out: While I want the stars bright, I don’t want them too bright.
• And the final result still needs to look like night (even though it will be brighter than the human eye sees).

I make extensive use of Lightroom and Photoshop’s History panels. There’s no single best way to do anything in Lightroom and Photoshop, so I make a lot of what-if?, trial-and-error adjustments that I only keep if I’m satisfied. So you’re not going to get specific steps from me as much as you’ll get things to try and accept/reject. The other thing I want to emphasize is to magnify the image to 100% (1:1) when you’re trying to decide whether or not to accept an adjustment.

I always play with the Highlights/Whites/Shadows/Blacks sliders—lots of up/down trial-and-error adjustments to find the right balance (gotta love that History panel). The Lightroom Clarity and Texture sliders will make the stars pop (and sometimes the foreground), but be especially gentle with these to avoid exaggerating the noise and making the stars look crispy). And Dehaze will add contrast to the sky that really enhances the Milky Way, but it also might darken parts of the scene too much. As with Clarity and Texture, Dehaze moderation is key.

I use lots of techniques to get the color I want—often just one or two adjustments are enough, and sometimes it requires a lot of adjustments. In Lightroom, I play with Color Temperature and Tint. That usually means cooling the temperature to somewhere in the 3000-4000 range, and nudging the Tint slider slightly to the right—less cyan, more red (which creates a blue with hints of purple). When those things don’t do the job, I’ll play with Lightroom’s HSL sliders. And now that Lightroom’s masking capability makes separating sky and foreground a snap, I usually process each independently of the other.

To tweak the color in Photoshop, I usually select the area I want to adjust, Feather it fairly loosely (large Feather Radius), and create a Color Balance and/or Saturation layer, doing lots of trial-and-error moves with each. And when using Saturation, I almost always work on specific colors, adjusting some combination of Hue, Saturation, and Lightness until I’m satisfied. Also, I find that some of the other adjustments I make in Lightroom and Photoshop tend to pump up the color too much, so I usually desaturate the sky a fair amount in Photoshop.

To make the Milky Way more prominent, a few passes with the Dodge brush set to Highlights can do wonders by brightening the stars without affecting the sky. But don’t overdo it—I prefer multiple passes at low Opacity (less than 20).

Probably the trickiest thing to contend with is a different hue near the horizon than I get in the rest of the sky. I can usually mitigate this somewhat with a feather selection and a Color Balance or Saturation layer, described above. And sometimes, if I’m really brave, I’ll select the offending area, Feather it, use the Eyedropper tool to pick the color I want, and the Paint Bucket tool to apply the color to the selected area. I usually get better results with Tolerance set fairly high (>50) and Opacity fairly low (<30). If you do this, don’t expect it to work every time, and always examine the results at 100% because it can introduce some pretty nasty blotchiness that doesn’t jump right out at you on first glance at lower magnification.

With most of my images, the last thing I do before saving is sharpen. But since night images are rarely about fine detail, and sharpening exacerbates noise and creates crispy-looking stars, I usually don’t sharpen my Milky Way images.

These tips are not intended to be the final word on Milky Way processing—I just wanted to give you some insight into my approach, both my goals and the steps I take to achieve them. I’ve been using Photoshop for a long time, but don’t consider myself a Photoshop expert, not even close. There may be (probably are) better ways to do many of these things. But I’ve always been a simple-first photographer: Do things the simplest possible way until you find some way that’s better, or until you encounter something you just can’t do without upping the complexity. And if you take nothing else away from this, I hope you at least feel empowered to experiment until you achieve results that make you happy.

About this image

New Zealand is hands down my favorite place to photograph the Milky Way. Better even than my previous favorite, the ultra-dark Colorado River at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, because: 1) the skies in New Zealand are almost as dark as the bottom of the Grand Canyon 2) the New Zealand air is usually cleaner (less dust and pollution) 3) New Zealand’s winter matches the Milky Way core’s prime months, so in June (when we do our workshop) the galactic center is photographable from about 7 p.m. until 7 a.m. 4) the Milky Way is higher in the sky down here.

Milky Way photography is a priority in the New Zealand workshop—not just for the people who sign up, but for Don and me as well. But since it’s winter, we often battle clouds, so the Milky Way on any given night is never a sure thing. To maximize our chances, over the years we’ve been doing this workshop Don and I have identified a handful of prime Milky Way locations at various points along the workshop’s 10-day journey.

A Milky Way location needs a good view of the sky in the direction of the Milky Way (in the first hours after sunset, that would be southeast), a compelling foreground, and minimal light pollution. It took us a couple of years, but we finally found a nice Milky Way spot on beautiful (and large) Lake Wakatipu near Queenstown. Since the workshop begins and ends in Queenstown, this spot allows us to check off the Milky Way box at the start of the trip (fingers crossed), and also gives us one last resort shot at it at the end of the trip.

This year we lucked out with clear skies on our very first night. So after a nice sunset farther up the lake toward Glenorchy, we drove back toward town and pulled into “our” spot. After waiting about 30 minutes for the sky to darken, we went to work. At first Don and I concentrated on getting everyone up to speed with Milky Way photography, but eventually we were able to get to work on a few images of our own.

On this New Zealand trip I’d decided to try my Sony a7R V at night—but because I’ve never tried this camera at night, to hedge my bets I also packed the trusty a7S III. The lens I chose for this trip was my Sony 14mm f/1.8 GM—almost as fast as the 24mm f/1.4, the Milky Way’s elevation in the New Zealand sky makes opting for the extra width of the 14mm a no brainer.

I started with the a7S III, but after a half dozen or so images switched to the a7R V. I haven’t looked at the a7S III images yet, but I have to say that I’m blown away by the results I got with my a7R V. Blown away enough that my days of packing a body just for night photography might very well be over. To get an image as clean as this one with 61 megapixel everyday camera truly is a (cliché warning) game changer.

I’ve photographed here several times before, each in slightly different conditions. This year the fact that there wasn’t as much snow on the peaks as previous years was more than compensated by the still, reflective lake surface.

We still have three more workshop nights, and I have cautious hopes for our planned Milky Way shoot at Tasman Lake in Mt. Cook / Aoraki National Park in a couple of nights. But if the clouds take us down, there’s no stress because we already have a great Milky Way shoot in the bank. Add that to our very special day cruising on Doubtful Sound, yesterday’s excellent Wanaka Tree shoot, and today’s spectacular Fox Glacier helicopter ride and hike, not to mention lots of fun with a bunch of great people, and I’m already declaring this trip an unforgettable success.

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A Milky Way Gallery

Click any image to scroll through the gallery LARGE