Welcome to the year 2020 and my first post!
The year 2019 is past and the two phototrips I made were a success, but lets have a closer look. (Seychelles 2019 and West Papua 2019.)
However there are shoots I’m unhappy with or missed.
First a picture I haven’t shown yet.
A milkyway panorama
At first glance it looks decent, but there are some shortcomings and things I learned just after coming back home…
So what could be improved?
Composition
Noise/IQ
Exposure
Choice of Lens
Nodalpoint/Panorama head
First I would change the positioning/composition, going closer to the two rocks. Making the milky way appear just above the two rocks and get rid of my local guide. ;-)
Second the solution to fight the noise/improve image quality, is to stack images for each section of the panorama (shoot 4, 8 or 16 pictures and stack them and stitch them).
Be aware that 4 picture will slash the noise in half, 8 will reduce it to roughly a third and 16 to a quarter.
The picture is also slightly underexposed but there is a limit how long you can expose before the stars become strokes. This is intertwined with the lens choice.
My choice was the Sigma 14 f/1.8 stepped down to f/2.2. Next time I take an f/1.4 lens with me maximum 24mm (in portrait orientation). My dream would be an 14/15/16mm f/1.4 lens…
There is also the 500 rule, which is 500/14 (focal length) which would be 35sec maximum exposure time.
However if you have a high density camera (high MP count) I would rather change it to the 300 rule, 300/14 = 20sec (21.42…..s) or in a case of a 24mm lens 300/24 = 12sec (12.5s).
Be aware, when you choose the exposure time, that you have to factor in the 4/8/16 multi picture
If you want to go even further than stacking with a faster lens, you can add a panorama head and shoot the panorama in two rows with different exposure!
One advantage is also that the panning is much more reliable and repeatable.