Monday, May 29, 2017

Milky Way Hunting!

This is my first time trying to capture the milky way.... i've done stars photography before but i never capture the milky way...somehow it slips off my mind...

So last Sunday i went with a friend who's also a photographer so lucky me he wont be bored to death! Our mission is to capture Milky Way or at least locate it. The night skies were quite clear when we grabbed our coffee but it was kinda cloudy when we reached our location. Patches of clouds which kinda ruined some photos....but oh well.... this is my first time at capturing Milky Way, but it was fun, in the dark, trying to find the darkest place away from the light pollution... i think we found a place but there are still light pollutions from the oil rigs and ports. We are at a beach. Kinda.

I've downloaded an app called Sky Guide for IOS, it $2.99 i think its worth the price, just face your iphone into the sky and it will show you where the milky way is..... technology nowadays....fascinating!!! i dont have to put a stick into the ground and look at the stars anymore...but i think thats for direction kinda compass thing?? oh well whatevs....

I also wanted to test the capabilities of my Sony A7S, and i started to appreciate its size...i think i sunk in to the thought that its not any bigger than a Fujifilm i might say.... but the 24-70 f4 is still kinda huge....it got front heavy as i fitted it to the camera body, the camera moves from its locked position on the tripod.... but i needed the wide angle FOV and that lens covers.... slight heavy vignetting though surprisingly...

The live view of the SOny A7S also went bonkers...i dunno why, maybe its a bug or maybe i mess up with some settings it just didnt work that night.....dang!! i had to guess the focus old skool style and bunch of trial and errors.... my friend with an olympus em10 can easily auto focus with a touch of the LCD. AUTO FOCUS!! yes...damn!! AUTO FOCUS the frikking night sky!! WTF!

So anyway my Live View didnt work when i wanted to but when i showed off the other night it works impeccably! Maybe next time no showing off....

Anyway, we're off at about 11pm,  grabbed our lattes and mochas at Coffee Bean and reached our first destination at almost midnight. the skies were clear but some patch of clouds visible. Its not the darkest of places as well as the restaurant opposite road has blaring spotlight least to say.... So we went to the second destination wher emost of my photos are taken....its quite dark and scary if alone... but thats what you do for photography right???

I set my IQ to RAW+JPEGS....face my iphone to the skies, fitted the 24mm and shoot away.... my shutter, ISO varies...aperture at its widest in this case at f4.... and thank god for RAW....i was able to process and slightly able to see the milkyway despite covered in patches of clouds.....

Would be great to have more of the tree as the foreground...

 One of those moments when i misfocus...too bad!! Grrrr!!


Light pollution can be seen on the clouds

During shooting i also have a problem with condensation on the lens... its from the airconditioning of my car....so it took a while for it to normalize? with room temperature.....

Battery wise for a shoot that took about an hour plus is quite ok....i think i still have about 40% juice...but i have spares! So make sure to have spare batteries....


Its been fun! 

Cant wait for the next milky way hunt!

1 comment: