Seeing the milky way in the BW/Quetico is always a real highlight for me.  Being in the Chicago burbs you can count the stars that you see in the sky.  Nothing better than a moonless inky black high pressure night up north.   

Kerry, how do you get shots of the stars like that? I'd be interested to know the general settings for those shots; it's not something I've ever tried before.

Ranger wrote on Jul 13^th, 2018 at 5:32pm:

I'm assuming that you'd be shooting with a DSLR or equivalent mirrorless like the Sony aRiii or, as in my case the Fuji X-t1.  First thing you'd want is a fast wide angle lens.  My image was done with an 18 mm (full frame equiv.), f/2.  The wide angle part is for obvious reason - you want to capture an expanse of sky but the really important bit is  f/2.8 or faster because without that you won't be able to capture enough light without a really, really long exposure.  Focusing can be a bit tricky.  The lens wants to be focused to infinity but modern DSLR lens settings go beyond infinity (don't ask me what that means!) so it is best to find where infinity is on your particular lens in the daylight and mark it.  Okay, so you've got your camera and lens.  Don't forget a good sturdy tripod because you will be using long exposures.  There are different ways to capture the Milky Way but you have to remember that beyond around thirty seconds exposure time, you start to get star trails ( the earth is moving,) which makes the whole thing look out of focus.  You can take one shot, say f/2, 15 sec, ISO 3200 and, depending on the quality of the lens, it will come out pretty well (there are charts available that give you suggested settings based on the lens aperture.)  But you will also get quite a bit of colour noise.  However, if the image is just being shown on Instagram or the net no one will probably notice.  What I do, is shoot 15 to 20 images using the numbers above with a one second delay between each.  Then I use a program called Starry Landscape Stacker, which, in post, automatically aligns all the images and, by stacking them, reduces the noise to almost zero.  So that's basically it.  Now in the case of this photograph, I wanted to get a nice foreground, so knowing where the Milky Way would appear, I set my camera up for the shot and about ¾ of an hour after sunset, shot the foreground at appropriate settings and focus with an ISO around 400.  I left my camera set up, changed the settings for the night sky shot and came back around 11 pm and did the night sky shooting.  Back home, I blended my foreground and background in post, which is not as difficult as it sounds but does require some experience with Photoshop.  That all being said, the best thing to do is give it a try. The minimum you'll need is a DSLR camera, a fast wide angle lens and a tripod.  You want to be shooting in RAW rather than Jpeg because you need as much information as the camera can give you.  Start by getting it all with one shot and experiment. When you get your first exposure it will feel like magic.  And there is nothing like being out under the sky in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere!

Kerry wrote on Jul 13^th, 2018 at 7:15pm:


I didn't know that.  It sure would be cool if we saw it like your pic.  Per looking at the moon phase for September I should have 3 excellent nights for star gazing.  I'll try my best to see the colors.

TomT wrote on Jul 14^th, 2018 at 12:32pm:

Thanks for the compliments.  That's my dream.  Not ready yet.  Last year was only my second season out with a "real" camera.