7 Mistakes to Avoid when Photographing the Milky Way

[@PhotoPills]

Need help when planning or photographing the Milky Way? Comment below! 👉 To Download our Free Milky Way Photography guide: www.photopills.com/articles/milky-way-photography-guide

[@malcolmsellar7176]

I have always learned something from every single one of your videos Thanks

[@PhotoPills]

Thank you Malcolm!

[@tigersunruss]

Great video! Astrophotography is the one thing I do excel at, for a beginner.

[@PhotoPills]

Thank you!

[@michaelvanvalkenburg5593]

Good advice. thank you!

[@PhotoPills]

Thank you Michael!

[@eos4life]

Great video and super useful information recap for the milky way! Too bad, that most comments are complaints!... Keep up the great work!

[@PhotoPills]

Thanks for the support!

[@waynechase6950]

Great video, don't forget the lens cap!

[@PhotoPills]

That's a must hehe

[@astroandrius]

5:20 in my personal experience hyperfocal distance does not work that great in practice. For night photos most of the time I use a Nikon D850 and Sigma 14mm f/1.8 DG HSM Art lens and if the stars are not perfectly in focus I get some coma [in fact I found that I get best results if the focus is slightly beyond infinity]. As mentioned in the video it is not a big issue if you are not going to print it, but I still like my photos to be as good as I can make them. So for me focus stacking is the way to go I guess.

[@PhotoPills]

Thanks for sharing your experience!

[@runsailwrite2429]

I love moonlight on the foreground. I feel there is a trend with blue hour foregrounds that is a bit overdone, especially when the foreground looks like daytime. It is actually dark outside. Also i enjoy a look with a sharp focus on a beautiful foreground element with blurry stars esp at 50mm or so. It is a cool look that is not yet overdone.

[@PhotoPills]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts :)

[@davidl5533]

Hey don't listen to that lot, your accent is great! 😊 I wish I could speak a foreign language as well. Thanks for this video, it's a a great refresher, and good timing. Next week I'm heading out on a trip I missed two years running because of covid lockdowns. So I'll post my mistakes after I get back! I'd forgotten lens warmers and a club friend had said they use pocket warmers in a sock. Let's see how that goes.

[@PhotoPills]

Thank you David!

[@ashleyraincloud7430]

Videos weren't linked in video?

[@PhotoPills]

They should be!

[@shfeil]

What about using the delayed shutter release (ie 2 sec)?

[@PhotoPills]

That's another option :)

[@torreyance2468]

do you have a tutorial to have the foreground and background focus like in the photos or is it 2 photos combined together?

[@PhotoPills]

Hey! We usually focus on our subject (making sure it falls behind the hyperfocal distance). The stars are not super sharp but good enough for us. The alternative is to focus on the stars or to shoot 2 photos (foreground + stars). Here you have a video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/baLKfH6ofsx0d7M and a guide: www.photopills.com/articles/milky-way-photography-guide. I hope they help you.

[@jehousley]

Visit the location during the day. First so you can see how to get there from your car and get an estimate of how long it will take. It will also allow you to adjust your location if needed for brush or large rocks.

[@PhotoPills]

Thanks for sharing! That's key!

[@saccaed]

Mistake 8: Put the lens warmer on before you think you will need it Recently botched a moonlit mountain and milky way time lapse because I rushed setup to catch as much sunset as I could. Couple hours later the temp dropped to the dew point and I had to install the lens warmer and bumped focus in the process. Time lapse came out alright anyhow as the defocus'd look highlighted major stars and it was only off slightly preserving the milky way. Going back out this weekend if weather holds and won't forget the lens warmer. Anyone interested I uploaded the time lapse. It's a good example of planning for moon light to illuminate the foreground.

[@PhotoPills]

Great tip!

[@godsinbox]

milky way core is available only on weekends, when the moon isnt out, when its not cloudy and when it isnt a work day or you arent too tired or busy. for me, that is 14 days a year. assuming a good night of entertainment is $50, it is an expensive hobby for a dedicated lens and/or track mount for about the same amount.

[@PhotoPills]

Then you need to plan those 14 days very well :)

[@sharonb7672]

Mistake #8 - setting the wrong Kelvin temp. I had a whole bunch of night time photos that turned out orange because I set my WB to use a Kelvin temperature but it was the wrong temp. It was a cloudy night, monsoonal moisture moved in so the shots weren't ruined, per se but kind of weird looking

[@PhotoPills]

Thanks so much for the tip Sharon!

[@burtjohnson3848]

As others have said here, and with all your videos, you have a HUGE ECHO problem on your audio. PLEASE get a better microphone, or use better placement, such as a Lavalier mic. That will dramatically improve your videos. Second, when you have videos like this, with lots of distinct subjects, please place chapter marks at each item. Or at the very least, indicate in the notes up front, what time mark covers which subject. That makes it easier to go to what we are interested in, particularly if rewatching in the future to remember some specific point you made. Overall, your software is fantastic your videos are instructive. They are just hard to understand due to the poor acoustics and layout (ie, no chapter marks)

[@PhotoPills]

Hey Burt! Thanks for the feedback! Yes... my acoustics are terrible. The room is a pain...

[@markjarrett9400]

When using the moon to provide ambulant light which quarter of the moon cycle would you use?

[@PhotoPills]

Usually less than 40%

[@jpmissdeNice]

The mistake I make all the time is to forget to change my shutter speed when changing my focal lenght on a zoom lens resulting in trailing whem I go from say 16mm to 24mm...

[@PhotoPills]

Ouch!!

[@armeniocavaco]

YOU do enough man...maybe you dont have the time to be perfect. All you do is free and the app in not that much the price of a Hamburguer, for God sakes...here from Portugal, Algarve, nice spots here :) keep going Rafa :)

[@PhotoPills]

Thank you Arménio!!!

[@jakobschneeberger3965]

👍👍👍

[@PhotoPills]

:D

[@argusray1]

Echo, echo, echo,echo - move the microphone closer to your mouth. That will help reduce the reflected sounds off the surrounding surfaces.

[@davidm7550]

Think of it as ambiance . . .

[@argusray1]

@@davidm7550 Ya, right. it's hard enough to understand him with his accent, now throw in the poor mic technique he likes to use and the recording adverse environment he chooses to work in. He's done good home recordings in the past, why not now?

[@PhotoPills]

The issue is the room...

[@argusray1]

@@PhotoPills better microphone placement would help

[@west-crete]

Sound quality if the video made ait a painful watch

[@PhotoPills]

I know

[@patrickwitherow8317]

Not being an engineer, I find this app very difficult to learn. There's a lot of extra verbiage that causes a loss of focus (pun intended).

[@saccaed]

I can see that. Lots of implied features for those that know. The youtube channel and others though have made lots of tutorials. Going to be a learning process no matter what though.

[@PhotoPills]

Hey Patrick! We're working on a better user experience :)

[@dominiclester3232]

Nice and thanks for speaking slower!

[@PhotoPills]

Thank you Dominic!