How to shoot Chongqing Yinhe

First, shoot the Milky Way as far away from cities, air pollution and light pollution as possible.

How to find the galaxy

For those who don't know astronomy and geography, let me introduce the most stupid method: there is an app called starwalk on the ios platform. Take an ipad or iphone and stand on the top of the mountain and shake it. Looking along the galaxy on the screen, it is usually in the same position. In the environment with strong light interference, the Milky Way sometimes can't be seen by the naked eye, so it needs software to locate it.

The time when the Milky Way appeared.

Even on a clear night in Wan Li, the shooting time of the Milky Way is limited, which is mainly affected by the rise and fall of the moon. I can't see it before dark, and I can't see the moon when it comes up completely. The moon sometimes hangs in the sky at 9 o'clock, and sometimes 1 1 doesn't appear. My geography is not good, which means I can't give a guide to the moon. In particular, the distant view of the Milky Way cannot be illuminated by artificial light sources, and it can only be shot within ten minutes after the moon rises, just like shooting the Jinshan Mountain in Rizhao. The best light ratio often flashes by and may never be met again. And the rotation of the earth. The location of the Milky Way is always changing, so many times a picture of the Milky Way has a lot of luck to touch. Usually you can get ready to start work when you see the stars, and you can call it a day when you see the moon.

According to the photographer, the northern hemisphere can't see the thickest part of the Milky Way in autumn and winter.

duration of exposure

The Milky Way and the stars follow the earth's rotation at the same time, so the best exposure time should be controlled within 30 seconds, not more than 60 seconds at most. If the exposure time is too long, the stars will become small orbits and the Milky Way will be empty. So remember, the limited exposure time is the biggest flaw in shooting the Milky Way.

Refer to the following figure for the actual shooting effect:

parameter

Because the exposure time is limited, you can't accumulate exposure by B-door like shooting a star track. You have only two choices: increase iso and open the aperture. Therefore, shooting the Milky Way really eats equipment. I think the best combination for shooting the Galaxy for civilian use at present should be a configuration similar to d3s+24 1.4. However, not everyone will choose this configuration. At present, in fact, an ordinary full-width machine plus an ordinary f2.8 wide angle is enough to deal with most situations. If you only have an aps-c lens and an f3.5 lens, there will be some serious injuries in the film. Noise is an inevitable problem, but it doesn't mean that you can't shoot. At least the small picture that reaches everyone is acceptable.

According to my personal experience, at an altitude of about 3,000 meters, the air is transparent and the Milky Way is visible to the naked eye. I give a relative takeoff parameter:

30s + f2.8 + iso 1600

Note that this is the take-off value, because I believe that you usually need to use iso higher than 1600 on the premise that the exposure is unchanged for 30s. Using iso 1600 to shoot a clear Milky Way, the previous weather conditions and the visibility of the Milky Way have been very good.

concentrate

Many people know to use infinity, but some people still ask me, I have used infinity, how can I shoot it or not? Here's a trick to focus at infinity. Don't twist the focus ring to the end of the Nikon lens, but dial it back a little. As for Canon, it has never been used to photograph the Milky Way, so it has no right to speak. Zeiss, please turn it around properly.

composition

In the dark night, sometimes the viewfinder looks dark, so does instant view. No matter how you improve the brightness of the LCD, you still can't see it. What should I do? Here is a simple way to raise iso to 6400 or even higher, with full aperture and exposure for 3-5 seconds. No matter how mushy you shoot, you just need to see the general composition, take a few more pictures to determine the composition and then expose it with appropriate parameters.

Remember to wear a hood, and a large area of film is red/blue (the same as the color temperature of light pollution), which is mostly caused by ambient light damage.

Also, Nikon's full-frame camera should remember to close your viewfinder when there are interference light sources around the fuselage. According to my test with Han Chong, the D700 reflector rises, and there is obvious light leakage between the eyepiece and CMOS, while the D80 and D300 have no such problem. The preliminary estimation is that the Quan Huafu pentaprism is different from the surrounding components, and the industrial design is more difficult, so light leakage cannot be avoided. Therefore, Nikon has designed a built-in viewfinder switch to prevent long-term exposure, and light will leak into CMOS through the viewfinder. And according to the instructions of D700, it is also confirmed.

Advanced: Select foreground and control light ratio.

It is not difficult to simply photograph the Milky Way. According to the above points, if you can meet good weather and the Milky Way, you can definitely shoot it. But it can be said that shooting the foreground, the middle scene and the distant view is the biggest difficulty and fun of shooting the Milky Way. Not much to say about the choice of prospects. The key of paper output lies in the control of light ratio. Usually the foreground is either too dark or too bright.

When the foreground is too dark, you can use artificial light sources to fill the light, such as flashlights, oil lamps, torches, candles and so on. Try to use diffuse light instead of direct light. The lighting in the foreground should be even, so you can try it several times and accumulate some experience. Here, you should also pay attention to the color temperature coordination between artificial light source and natural light source, which is uncontrollable. Just make two identical films with different color temperatures with RAW and wipe them with a mask.

If it is too bright, you can shake the black card or insert the gradient backwards. There is no fixed method for this. We can always solve it by analyzing the specific situation and using our brains.

In this photo, when we arrived, there was a row of Tibetan houses behind us. There are homes, shops and lights on. Finally, I knocked on the door from door to door and said Tashkent had turned off the light. There are also a few lights that need to be judged by the naked eye. This photo is also the most questioned. Many people say that I did it ... I would like to take this opportunity to present the original picture:

These are two original jpg images with different color temperatures from the same Raw. Enter PS, mask, pull the gradient from bottom to top, and fine-tune the optional colors.

According to the truth, the best and simplest way to shoot a promising galaxy film is to expose the foreground and the galaxy separately at the same position, and then add PS later. There are many HDR effects that will be very noticeable. But I always feel that no matter what era photography has entered, a photo without a shutter can't excite me.

Personal opinion: stick to the shutter release as much as possible, rely more on the light source endowed by nature, learn more about the proportion and tone of light, and don't rely too much on layers and masks. Perhaps the photos taken at the beginning have many flaws and are not so dazzling, but I firmly believe that I will gain more and go further on the road of photography. It's like practicing internal skills. Internal skill is deep, and all weapons are awesome.

With the development of equipment, the imaging quality of galaxies will be higher and higher, and more and more people will become "idolize people".