My Go-To Techniques For CLEAN Milky Way Photography (Stacking, Hot Pixel Removal & More)

In this tutorial, I share my go-to technique for ultra-clean Milky Way photos using image stacking. You'll learn how to edit RAW images in Lightroom, stack with Starry Landscape Stacker, and use Photoshop for an alternative method and hot pixel removal.
Workshops & Newsletter
shainblumphoto...
Presets
www.michaelsha...
Lightroom Masterclass
www.michaelsha...
Help Support The Channel:
/ @michaelshainblum
My Gear
photography camera: amzn.to/3j96BH9
video/timelapse camera: amzn.to/3hZE9Z4
chest vlog cam: amzn.to/3NlcYHk
new mini vlogging cam: amzn.to/4aecAnt
drone: amzn.to/46TyLNd
walk around lens: amzn.to/46OJXdL
wide lens: amzn.to/3zYPyhw
night sky lens: amzn.to/2LLy2cn
telephoto lens: amzn.to/3zUckqU
photo storage: amzn.to/3taJk0i
sensor clean!: tinyurl.com/ye...
tripod: www.bhphotovid...
shimoda camera bag: shimoda-design...
rocket blower: amzn.to/3ocXczS
lens wipes: amzn.to/31LLhzF
mini tripod: amzn.to/35jzsRX
headlamp: amzn.to/3taak06
Car Camping Gear
mattress: amzn.to/3TjbqRL
window shades: amzn.to/48c1fCy
window shades back: amzn.to/48a8U4n
front shade: amzn.to/3RfhrfI
middle curtain: amzn.to/3GIcVBj
sleeping bag: amzn.to/3GVKXm5
car fan: amzn.to/3RA5jqR
battery power: amzn.to/3Rf8N0z
storage: amzn.to/3ReLMLf
cooking: amzn.to/3Rjkx26
backpacking food (but tasty): amzn.to/3RBv3TO
Music For My Videos
Musicbed: fm.pxf.io/c/26...
#landscapephotography #milkywayphotography

[@gregorsnell]

Quick and easy way to get nice clean results 🙏 Great tutorial man. Cheers!

[@MichaelShainblum]

Thanks man, glad you enjoyed it!

[@matthewwinwood]

Nice one Michael, very easy to follow, will be trying it out when the nights are better down here in Tasi.

[@baileyobar5885]

You always make the best videos! Appreciate all the time you put into them!

[@MichaelShainblum]

Hey thanks so much Bailey, hope all is well! Andrew and I are shooting pine cones right now!

[@lancewilson8755]

Great video Michael, love the hot pixel hack! Also your studio camera work here is just majestic

[@robtraverssmith]

As always, I enjoy your easy & informative style, Michael. Many thanks!

[@jasonkudlophotography]

No better way than a good Milky Way stack! Just came off Rainier for some Milky Way shooting - a good stack is in my near future too!

[@ravenfallsphotography6254]

Were you part of the group at Sunrise last night? I was the photographer standing just to the right of your group.

[@jasonkudlophotography]

@@ravenfallsphotography6254 no, last night I was in Portland, but back in Seattle now! I’ll probably be back on Rainier Saturday or Sunday! How’d your shoot go? Get some good stuff?!

[@ravenfallsphotography6254]

FWIW, Alyn Wallace has observed that the best results from stacking programs come with using 8 to 16 base images; any more images can cause problems in stacking.

[@yourneerajraj]

Good to hear that you know Alyne Wallace. His last words "Good luck and clea skies" always motivates me to shoot astrophotography

[@MichaelShainblum]

RIP to Alyn. He was an awesome human being and a great photographer. Personally, I have never had an issue stacking 20 images. But it's entirely dependent on what focal length/shutter speed you use.

[@OlivierRocq]

Thanks for sharing so much stuff !

[@MichaelShainblum]

thanks for watching!

[@cosminstan8842]

Amazing results and image 👌👏

[@JimPatterson]

Just purchased Starry Landscape Stacker a few weeks ago. So thank you Michael for the tutorial. Looking forward to using it!

[@MichaelShainblum]

Nice, I look forward to seeing what you create Jim!

[@tkNAT]

Great tutorial for a nice and clean image 👌

[@MichaelShainblum]

thank you!

[@NikolettMengyi]

Stunning ❤

[@ThomasHolder-xx7qm]

Great video, Michael. Really helpful, straightforward and delivers excellent results. I’m seriously considering giving Starry Landscape Stacker a shot to take simplify my astro photography projects.

[@MichaelShainblum]

Thanks so much! I have used the program for i think 9-10 years now, its always served me well!

[@robintaylor-hunt5875]

Very useful! Thanks

[@lubos-ro3hy]

Great tips, superb video👍

[@MichaelShainblum]

Glad you liked it, thank you!

[@DLMVegas]

Been doing this for years. I use a tracker though. Usually shoot 10+ shots at 1 minute each. With the tracker I can also use a lower ISO (800 or 1600). There are several small trackers that are cheap from Move Shot Move.

[@BryanElliott007]

Very useful information thank you! 🙏

[@MichaelShainblum]

Glad it was helpful, thanks for watching!

[@LucasWoodhouse]

Awesome video man! I've been dabbling with more and more astro shots recently and definitely a few things learned that I need to go and try

[@lu8cho]

Good stuff Michael! These tutorials are great! Keep them coming!

[@MichaelShainblum]

Thanks so much for watching and the support man!

[@mere_mort4l]

I usually get good results with 7 to 10 second exposures @f1.8 and ISO 6400 using both my 20 and 14mm lenses. I have been mainly using LR denoise, but I like the idea of having more control with stacking. The only thing I find stacking affected adversely was some detail in the waves on the sandy beach that was gone in the final result, unless it was KZbin compression and not actual detail. Very clear and concise tutorial, thanks

[@dominiclester3232]

I nearly clicked of when you clarified it’s just a stacking video, but I’m glad I didn’t because is is so clear and just perfect, thank you! (It’s also helpful to see how quickly you get amazing results 🎉🎉🎉)

[@woogre]

Thanks!

[@MichaelShainblum]

thanks so much!

[@wismokey]

I have had good luck with Topaz Denoise. Frustrated with stacking but it does work for high ISO. I have now gone to using a tracker so I use lower ISO and long shutter speeds. No more need for stacking just a sky exposure and a landscape exposure on blend them.

[@murataksu6496]

Thanks for the video. I'm beginner and I'm going to use starry landscape stacker this weekend. I have 12mm Samyang lens on Sony A6000. When I use the software for stacking the images am I writing 12mm or 18mm because it equals 18mm for full frame lens. TIA!

[@Dyllyboy]

that dust and scratches is actually a game changer omg

[@MichaelShainblum]

thanks, really glad you dig that one!

[@Dyllyboy]

@@MichaelShainblum I'll be adding it into my workflow. even on a single exposure, the amount of detail it exposed had me blown away!

[@michaelfranklin1470]

Check out the option to 'mask with islands of sky' (the default is 'mask without islands of sky') when creating the sky mask in Starry Landscape Stacker- it does a better job of handling parts of the sky peeking through trees.

[@rattlhed1]

Great video Michael! I've been using Sequator on my PC, but results can be hit and miss and sometimes it produces a lot of artifacts around the foreground objects. SLS did an excellent job with so many trees in the image. I have a Macbook pro and will have to check this program out to see what kind of results I can get with it.

[@Grafixart]

Just came from your IG story.. Im here to support you legend ❤

[@MichaelShainblum]

Hey thanks so much!

[@lphilpot01]

Have you tried Siril? It's really geared more toward "pure" deep-sky astrophotography (e.g., it doesn't know land from sky) but it's *very* powerful for stacking and processing.

[@MichaelShainblum]

I haven't, but I would be less inclined to use it because I only shoot night sky stuff with the landscape. But if I ever got into Deep Sky, I would definitely check it out.

[@krosewx34]

Great tutorial! Astro is my fav photography. I may need to schedule an online session with you to edit my MW images. I find LR and PS somewhat overwhelming at times!

[@MichaelShainblum]

Hey, thanks so much; yeah, LR and PS can be very overwhelming, but they become a lot easier to use with a bit of practice and experience!

[@chrismassa5891]

Secret Beach Oregon. Super location.

[@EvanLudesWeatherNatureVideo]

Great tutorial! Interesting on the hot pixel removal. I've always run my images through Adobe Camera Raw and it always just... automatically identifies and removes them? I never really questioned it 🤔

[@MichaelShainblum]

Thanks Evan! Hmmm, I do not believe ACR does that. It could be your camera doing it internally, with long exposure NR or pixel mapping. I need to reset the date on my A7S3 to see if it goes through and recalibrates the hot pixels. That can sometimes get rid of them.

[@JasonReevesMusic]

🤘🏼👩🏼‍🚀✨🩵

[@abdulrahmanazmi7042]

What lens did you use to take milky way shot?

[@MichaelShainblum]

Nikon 14 to 24 mm

[@MartinFransson]

Does the stacking program not handle 16 bit TIFF? Since you exported as 8 bit 🙂

[@MichaelShainblum]

Nah you can do 16 as well

[@MartinFransson]

@@MichaelShainblum great! Might have to try that out, looked really handy compared to my manual editing trying to blend sky and foreground :)

[@kheankimhong]

😊😊😊😊❤❤❤

[@MichaelShainblum]

thank you!

[@ME2K23]

6:51 it seems to take some stars out along the hot pixels 🧐

[@MichaelShainblum]

7:11 ...

[@mikejeffries333]

Good stuff Michael. Have been following this simple and effective technique since learning it from you in Oregon and it worked wonders for me in Joshua Tree. You should check out some of the results. Owe it all to you. Thanks, man! Mike mikivusphotograhpy

[@MichaelShainblum]

That so awesome to hear Mike! That was a great trip. I will check out some of your new stuff! :)

[@kristjan-wn3gc]

BEFORE image was much better, beautiful and realistic as this manipulated version AFTER

[@MichaelShainblum]

I totally agree, I love almost pitch black grainy puke green casted raw files. Also image manipulation should be illegal.

[@davidmichael8880]

I was wondering why you shot these images in such a high iso, 12800 I believe. Is it because you shoot in a very dark area? When I shoot milky way I often don't go higher than iso 3200 with a f2.8 aperture. That's because otherwise I feel like I get so much bright light pollution. Or do you ignore the light pollution to have all the details in the milky way?

[@MichaelShainblum]

Very dark skies here, so I can shoot 20 sec F2.8 ISO12800 and not get any blown-out sky. Plus, the A7S3 handles high iso remarkably well, so it looks similar to what the A1 would look like at around 3200-6400ISO. Plus, I thought the extremely high ISO would be a great demonstration for stacking to show the difference.

[@davidmichael8880]

@@MichaelShainblum thanks for your explanation! That makes sense 😊

[@Speedbird447]

+ watch

[@MichaelShainblum]

:)

[@ZeitsprungMusik]

Can also compose very good with Photoshop. Dont need a extra staking Programm if you have PS and lr.

[@johncallery814]

What about using Lightroom's Denoise on the photos before stacking in Starry Landscape Stacker? Wouldn't that give you an even cleaner photograph.

[@jefferyrobbins3468]

Actually, why not simply use LR Denoise on 1 photo and put final edits on that to get a finished photo? Letting AI in the software remove the noise without much loss of detail. Seems like the logical comparison and elephant in the room... Thanks, kind regards.

[@frednorman1]

@@jefferyrobbins3468 I think I'll try that tomorrow night. Take one photo and denoise it in LR, i'm taking another 20 photos and stack them and see how they compare

[@MichaelShainblum]

So its interesting you bring that up, I tried that when denoise first came out. But it didn't really change the final result. In general if you average out the noise you are left simply with the detail fom the original landscape. It depends though on how many photos you stack. So if you were to only stack like 3 photos, then running them through denoise would certainly help. Because there's not enough frames to average out all the noise. But from 10-20 frames and you are already almost completely removing the noise anyways. There is also a level of variability when using LR denoise where you can potentially lose or change some of the details/colors It depends on the shot though.

[@MichaelShainblum]

@jefferyrobbins3468 I am a huge fan of LR denoise and use it all the time for shots. I also did a full comparison and review on this channel. However stacking is a more objective way to simply remove the noise in a scene while still keeping all of the original detail. Using AI you are allowing that algorithm to decide what detail is important and what isn't. It does a super great job, but it's nowhere near perfect. A lot of the time it does introduce some detail changes and sometimes at the lower levels it can't remove all of the noise. The denoise algorithm will keep getting better too which is cool. But if given the option and time I would personally always opt to stack.

[@ravenfallsphotography6254]

@@MichaelShainblum I've found that, with Sequator at least, running Denoise on all the base images gives you a considerably cleaner final stack.

[@grigoryvidishev1810]

Hi Michael, I do love your videos and I do learn from you. Thank you for that. However, I want to complain. I received an e-mail from you about Kelvin Designs sale and the practice that you use is wrong and unfair. It forces people to make a purchase of your training. I made a purchase of $37 and instead of giving a link to the purchased training it forced me to make another purchase of $47. I was not given an option to reject it and go to my purchase. It is unfair! I hope you can see this comment.

[@MichaelShainblum]

That’s not correct. I would never force anyone to pay more than what was stated after purchase was made. That would be highly illegal. If you buy a course there may be an offer to get a discount for other packages but you are never ever obligated to click that. You can simply click not interested and you will go through with your original purchase. If you accidentally clicked something or a glitch happened which caused a you to purchase the wrong courses you can email [e-mail] and they will refund your account. In fact if you are ever unhappy with your purchase you can get a full refund via our support. I wish you had emailed me privately instead of making this public comment. Because I can’t do anything to help you here and now I am just defending a false statement. Email the support above and they can take care of everything for you.

[@scarcesense6449]

It bothers me how often some third party software or plugin (often cheap or even free) gets better results that the adobe package that ends up costing you more than your camera in the long run.

[@MichaelShainblum]

It kinda makes sense though. Adobe isn't really considering astrophotography much in terms of their software. I mean they do to a small margin. But we aren't a huge demographic for them Unfortunately. But for programs like Starry Stacker, its main purpose is just this one thing and the people making the software only have us in mind. Same with things like PTGui, Helicon Focus. They only do one thing, but they do it damn well!

[@ZeitsprungMusik]

Can also compose very good with Photoshop. Dont need a extra staking Programm if you have PS and lr.