Guide to Capturing the Starry Night Sky

Tips for capturing all them starssss! ✨ (Save this post for the next time you want to snag some shots of those beautiful twinkly balls of light in the sky!) I can’t even count how many of y’all have asked for tips on capturing the milky way/stars in general, so FINALLY here is my beginners guide! 💻 Prepare yourself mentally that most of the pop in shots like this come in the post production but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do as much as possible in camera to get the perfect shot! 📸 Now, what should your settings be? First, switch to manual! You’ve got this, don’t be scared of that little M! -You’ll want a long shutter speed! But keep in mind anything longer than 20 seconds will pick up the movement of the earth giving you not so crisp little balls of light. (The amount of trailing you get can depend on the lens you’re using.) -As wide of an f-stop as possible! This will help you snag those beautiful dusty colors in the milky way on top of allowing more light in! -Kick that ISO up! Depending on your camera you won’t want to push past a certain point or else the noise in your image will be to overpowering to even edit the shot. And the biggest hurdle for me, every single time, is focus. You won’t be able to focus on the sky looking through your viewfinder, on your back screen, or by using auto focus, so flip it to manual focus and turn it turn your lens all the way towards that infinity symbol. Then cue all the test shots and zooming in to see if the stars are crisp and making very slight adjustments to the focus. Additional notes to consider: ☀️Summer (where you live) is the best time of year to get those beautiful dusty, dense, and colorful milky way shots. 💡Depending on the camera you have you can switch to bulb mode allowing for you to decide how long the shutter is open, which allows for those really cool shots where the stars are trailing in a circle (face north or south) or are trailing across the sky in straight lines (face east or west). You will likely have to up your f-stop for this! 🚦Get far away from all sources of light (watch the moon cycles) or you won’t get that shot! Any and all questions welcome!