You see tons and tons of what I call Heavenly Body photos these days. And that’s because digital and especially current bodies make it so bloody simple. Seriously, all you gotta do is dial in IS03200, 8sec f2.8 and you have a photo. It’s not like the days with Kodacrhome and we had to super cool the film jsut to get started. This is a photo from our trip to the Devil’s Racetrack and in particular, the Grand Stand. This is a simple click, Df, 16Fish, IS03200, 8sec f2.8. Why the Df? I still think it’s the best high ISO machine out there. But here’s the deal as I see it. Just because you have a photo of the Milky Way doesn’t make it a great shot. In fact, the ease of doing heavenly bodies, this is really nothin! To get this one click, the one I like the best, I stayed up all night, sitting there loving the skies and watching for the right moment. What’s the right moment? In this case, when the earth spun so the Milky Way lined up where you see it in the sky and the clouds parted enough as you see them. I had many folks asking me how I made this shot and I worry that folks just take the numbers and run. There is more to photography than just numbers and that especially includes heavenly bodies!
FWIW … I set up the camera based on the foreground (which you see above) and then wait for the earth to spin to make the final photo. The animated Gif below gives you a little better idea of the before and after.
