How To Take A Milky Way Selfie

In this video, I talk about how to take a Milky Way portrait. I'll go over everything from gear, camera settings, shooting, and processing.
----------------------------------CHAPTERS----------------------------------
0:00 Intro
01:25 Gear
04:55 How To Photograph The Milky Way
06:23 Camera Settings
09:13 Shooting Foreground and Background
13:37 Processing Intro
14:44 Stacking
17:13 Milky Way Processing
26:52 Foreground Processing
28:17 Blending Foreground With Milky Way
29:47 Final Touches
31:13 Outro and Final Photo
Light Pollution Map www.lightpollutionmap.info/#z...

[@shannonrobertson7212]

We did a Milky Way maternity photoshoot on the top of a Colorado mountain pass!! We did some picnic poses calling it "Staructerie". They turned out incredible! Now I'm addicted to figuring out how to take these photos myself. The photographer did such an amazing job for a truly unique maternity photoshoot. Thank you for the great how-to. I'm excited to try these out!

[@ianmacdonald2307]

Absolutely brilliant Walt. I’ve watched every single video of yours so far and enjoyed them all. As others have mentioned, you are a natural tutor and I love your channel so much. Thank you for doing what you do 🤝

[@cobeycobb]

Great video. Here’s a trick I use for the star reduction. Go to your channels window, grab the RGB channel and drag it down into the little “select” circle at the bottom of the layers window near the mask button. It will select all of the highlight quickly and then you can go in and expand and feather.

[@LathamCochran]

I was just thinking about how to do this. Perfect timing!

[@craiglowery4427]

Fantastic video Walt. You are a natural teacher. This is the first time I’ve seen anyone use the Sky Replacement tool. Very powerful

[@jordanfreedman2254]

Phenomenal comprehensive walk through! Thank you so much!!!

[@deltaastrophotography]

No problem! Glad you got something from it!

[@vasomilicevi9960]

A lizard holding his headlamp at the beginning had me laughing so hard! 🤣🤣🤣

[@deltaastrophotography]

😂😂😂

[@thedarkestlotus]

I learned so much! It is my first try attempting to shoot the Milky Way. I took like 6 pictures with different ISO settings so I could also get a brighter image of the tree on the foreground. I even adjusted the focus to get everything right. Did it all at my front yard in the middle of Rio de Janeiro with so much light pollution and was able to post-process it to a point which I could see the Milky Way very clearly. Thank you.

[@drkumarharaprasadmisra5562]

Wow super video. I didn't know there was a sky replacement function in PS. Thank you so much

[@OGLettaJ]

This was one banger of a video Walt. 🔥🔥🔥📸

[@deltaastrophotography]

Thanks!

[@alexis8471]

Walt needs more SUBS GUYS!!!!!!!!! He deserves it

[@deltaastrophotography]

Yes! This is truth! 😂

[@williamsamukcham8551]

Great video. Love the explanation, I really appreciate it.... Clear skies🌠

[@211milkman]

Awesome video Walt! Just what I needed to know. Thank you for posting this. Clear skies and great luck in the grand canyon.

[@deltaastrophotography]

Thanks! I'm so excited!

[@johngiromini5745]

You are right about PS: practice, repeat, practice, repeat... When you can tweak a snail hair, you know there are too many options. Great video, Walt. I plan to use this video a lot.

[@carlreid4161]

Marvellous end result Walt excellent explanation of the process for selfies.🙏

[@jbflores01]

Great tutorials! Like your sense of humor too!

[@Thony_Mahony]

thanks for this awesome video :) keep up the great work

[@tjstottlemyer341]

Great video! Your videos are so well paced and easy for beginners like me. I really appreciate your channel. Keep the videos coming! Thanks

[@mauriceaustin3442]

Thank you Walt. New subscriber and I really enjoy your videos. I can follow your lessons so much easier then a LOT of other astro photographers. Thank you for taking the time and making these videos. Best of the day to you.

[@lucagiordani5391]

Spettacolare.... Super tutorial ❤

[@SteveZodiac777]

Nice one Walt!

[@astrotan]

Incredible bro

[@korvdploeg4529]

Pretty awesome!!

[@mrmtruckermax2]

Excellent work!! Your process is very similar to mine. Great video.

[@yervantparnagian5999]

Good job pal.

[@TrevorMcGrathPhotography]

Really nice work. Love your videos. You should have more sub's

[@blanksh0t181]

I'm really happy to have stumbled upon your channel. I'm an amateur photographer just in it purely for the hobby of it and we both live in the southeastern region. Adjacent states if I recall you mentioning you live in MS in another video. Thanks to your content, I've decided to try branching a little into astrophotography. I don't have a tracker but I do have an assortment of lenses and a DSLR. I'm gonna be taking my 10-20mm out on the next new moon and see if I have any luck. Thanks!

[@kevinashley478]

5:26 I don't know how much difference there is in the USA, but in NC the Milky Way core is up reasonably high at around midnight or a little after during July and August.

[@dw.in.michigan]

Great video, Walt! I love the simple editing instructions you provide. One of the things that has helped me is the updated masking features in LR and Camera Raw Filter, for making multiple local adjustments, especially if you have a complicated foreground. There's a KZbin channel called Focus Photo School. He gives really short and simple tutorials on Light Room, so you can just apply that as needed to Camera Raw Filter. Another channel you might want to check out, if you haven't seen it already, is Nightscape Images - Richard Tatti in Australia. His light painting techniques will rock your world. Looking forward to your eclipse video. Hope your Grand Canyon adventure yielded some great photos.

[@akkarparkiamopas3401]

totally agree, That calculation for star exposure time seems not really accurate . I normally take a test shot and see if there is a star trail and lengthen or shorten the exposure accordingly.

[@mike_abramyan]

Really nice video! I’ve wanted to get into light-orb selfies for a while but I can’t justify buying a flash and the diffuser simply for those photos. That’s just way too much money & extra gear that I don’t wanna deal with fitting in my bag. Gonna have to try some alternative ideas for the light source…

[@astroaprilia2498]

Very kool, Walt! I HATE trying to edit my images but I'll give this a try some time before it's too late in the 'season'. I don't have PS so I use GIMP (free). I suck big time at the editing process.

[@veskiyeh]

What is the flash setting detail of the foreground?

[@RodrigoZeba]

Love it! Thanks!! Quick question: I can't find the Gratuated Filter on Camera Raw, it's not there... Do you know the shortcut for it?

[@deltaastrophotography]

In the current version of Photoshop, when you open Camera Raw Filter you should see icons in the top right of the Camera Raw window. The Graduated Filter should be there. It looks like a square and it's right right under the brush icon. Also while in Camera Raw Filter you can hit the G key to bring up the Graduated Filter.

[@HorrorAndCoffee]

Awesome video Walt….do you know about the blood moon lunar eclipse on May 15th?

[@deltaastrophotography]

Oh yeah! Fingers crossed it's not cloudy!

[@TrungNguyen-uf8cv]

Can I just use copies of one dark frame to throw in the stacking process?

[@diegosoloaga3673]

Great tutorial !! Ill be trying spme of that photoshop moves , can i ask you the name of that app you use to search for the milky way ? Thank you

[@deltaastrophotography]

Stellarium. It comes as a desktop app for your computer or an app for your phone. I use it to plan all my shoots! I just love how you can fast forward through time to see what time certain things rise and also check on the moon

[@diegosoloaga3673]

@@deltaastrophotography thank you Walt ¡¡¡¡ i enjoy all your vids tips and jokes always going out to photograph the eclipse in a few hours , watching you new video now

[@bentleygamertv1624]

What star tracker do you use

[@iRafaelkr]

Just a question that popped in my mind now, after watching a lot of your videos of milky way shooting: Can't I use 20 shots that I already took before, with the lens cap on, instead of taking 20 shots again? Cause they all will be "the same black", wouldn't they? 🙃

[@deltaastrophotography]

Sadly no. Even if you had previously taken 20 dark frames with the exact same camera settings, they might not be the same temperature. One of the main things dark frames get rid of is thermal noise. If you used dark frames from a previous night and it was a different temperature outside you might end up adding noise.

[@iRafaelkr]

@@deltaastrophotography amazing, I didn't know that. Thanks for the reply and the explanation. I'm searching for a good deal on a T5I, and your videos are being extremely helpful

[@justdigit]

Are you going to the North Rim or the South rim?

[@deltaastrophotography]

I wanted to do the North Rim, but it won't open till May 15. This is my only weekend I can travel so south it is!

[@MarkBether]

Mechagodzilla 😀

[@nightskyimages2977]

People watching this don't even need a flash why he used it I will never know been doing astrophotography for three years now and I don't understand why you just used a flash lol didn't need it at all mate

[@deltaastrophotography]

I'm very well aware that a flash is not needed. The flash is a special effect used to create a very specific kind of photograph.