Milky Way Photography Tips, Techniques, & Examples

Every landscape photographer has probably seen jaw-dropping Milky Way photography and wished they had the opportunity to capture a similar nightscape masterpiece. Surprisingly, if you give yourself an opportunity to capture an epic Milky Way photo, it’s actually easy to do!

In this article, we will give you everything you need. This includes how to find the Milky Way in your night sky, what camera gear to use, and which settings to choose. Of course, we’ll also include ample examples to inspire your journey!

How to Find the Milky Way

First and foremost, it’s critical to understand when and where to see the Milky Way. Unfortunately, it is not visible every single night of the year. Where it is positioned in the sky will vary depending on both your location and the time of year.

Actually, technically speaking, the Milky Way is all around us because it’s the galaxy we reside in. The Milky Way CORE is what you’re looking for! That’s what this thing is:

Thankfully, finding the Milky Way core is as easy as downloading an app on your phone. Okay, it’s that easy to “find” the Milky Way, but of course, actually getting out to see it is another story. Here’s what you need to know….

In the Northern Hemisphere, you can see the Milky Way from spring until fall, with the easiest viewing being just after sunset in the summer. In the southern hemisphere, the opposite is true. You’ll see the Milky Way in fall, winter, and spring.

With an app such as Sun Surveyor, PhotoPills, or The Photographer’s Ephemeris, you’ll be able to easily locate where in your night sky the Milky Way will be visible, and when. For example, for me in the U.S., the Milky Way is visible late at night (around 1 or 2 am) in the spring, and almost all night long in the summer. I’ll see it rising in the Southeast, and crossing in an arc through the Southern sky.

Of course, you’ll also need to find dark skies and clear weather, too. There are also apps and websites that can help you find the nearest dark sky and predict a night when it will be clear.

How to Photograph the Milky Way

Now that you’ve picked your where and when, let’s get into how. In this section, we’ll talk about the camera gear and camera settings that you’ll need to capture beautiful Milky Way photos.

The Best Camera for Milky Way Photography

Honestly, almost any camera made in the last five years is capable of capturing great Milky Way photos. I shouldn’t even bother listing a specific camera, because it really is all about the lens you mount on it. We’ll get to that next but, in the meantime, here are a few of my favorite cameras that are a good value for night scape photography.

Nikon

The Nikon Z5 is one of the most affordable full-frame mirrorless cameras available. Nikon has a lineup of excellent lenses that you can pair with it using the money you saved compared to most other full-frame cameras that are far more expensive.

Sony

The Sony A7C has an impressive sensor similar to many other cameras that cost much more, but in a more compact, entry-level body similar to the Sony A6x00 series. For those who want a more advanced, professional camera, the Sony A7 III is now a relatively affordable workhorse camera, and the Sony A7 IV is its updated, modern successor.

Canon

Canon’s original EOS R full-frame mirrorless body might be replaced soon, but that just means it is one of the more affordable high-end cameras in Canon’s lineup.

APSC cameras and lenses are also highly capable of capturing the Milky Way, actually. You’ll find that any of the latest choices from Sony, Nikon, Canon, and Fujifilm are all very impressive. Just be sure to pair them with a lens with a very fast aperture such as f/1.4 or f/2, if possible.

Micro Four Thirds cameras, by the way, with the smallest sensors of modern mirrorless systems, are still incredibly capable thanks to the fact that more fast primes (up to f/1.2) and fast zooms (as fast as f/1.8!) are arriving.

Best Lens for Milky Way Photography

This is the truly important part. For the best Milky Way photos, you’ll want a wide-angle, fast-aperture lens. Whether you decide to buy an f/2.8 zoom or an f/1.4-1.8 prime lens is up to you and your personal preference. As long as you have something fast and wide, you’re in business.

Personally, I do a lot of nightscape photography, so I like to cover multiple focal lengths. 14mm is a go-to ultra-wide focal length that I use very often. 20mm and 24mm are great focal lengths for slightly tighter compositions that still allow me to include enough of the night sky, especially when photographing distant subjects.

Beyond that, you’ll find that lenses such as 35mm or 50mm primes will be less useful for Milky Way photography unless, of course, you are going straight to highly advanced panoramic stitching work.

For APSC and Micro Four Thirds users, simply take these full-frame focal lengths and look for your equivalent. Again, the faster the aperture, the better. On APSC, for example, a 16mm f/1.4 prime lens is an equal match to a full-frame 24mm f/2 prime, and will give you amazing results!

You Need a Heavy Tripod for Nightscape Photography

Before we move on to camera settings, I want to remind you that, since you’re inevitably going to be using very long shutter speeds for every photo you take, having a solid, sturdy tripod is going to be one of the best gear-related investments you can make. Don’t trust that wobbly, lightweight “travel tripod” that has five-section legs. It will frustrate you to no end by making some of your photos randomly soft when there is a light breeze.

Get yourself a stiff, sturdy tripod, even if it costs a little bit more and weighs a pound or so more. My personal favorite is the Slik VARI series. You’ll thank me later!

Best Camera Settings for Milky Way Photos

Now that you’ve got your gear, let’s talk about how to actually click the photos!

First, of course, you’ll need to set your exposure. This part is easy: be brave, crank your ISO way up, and set your aperture wide open! This is what you bought a mirrorless interchangeable lens camera for, as opposed to your cell phone. You can get good image quality at ISO 3200 or even 6400, and your lens is going to do quite well at its fastest aperture. If you have an f/1.4 prime, you can even stop it down to f/2 or f/2.8, especially if there is any moonlight.

With these two settings dialed in, your shutter speed will be whatever it takes to give you a decent exposure. Start in the range of 4-8 seconds, and then go up to 15-30 seconds if necessary. The only trouble with 30-second (and longer) exposures, though, is that the earth’s rotation will actually begin to cause stars to turn into trails. Star trails are cool photos too, of course, but that’s not our goal here.

Quick Advice on Star Trails

My advice? When you’re first starting out, don’t worry about trails in the stars. Focus on learning the techniques overall. You can always save up to buy a faster lens or a camera with better high ISO performance, but the knowledge you’ll gain by simply practicing now will be much more valuable.

How to Focus on Stars

Of course, the perfect exposure is not very useful if your images are slightly out of focus. Focusing on the stars is one of the most daunting challenges that landscape photographers undertake, but it’s actually quite easy once you get the hang of it.

Once your exposure is dialed in almost perfectly, you will actually be able to see a few stars in live view or through your EVF. If your lens is set approximately to infinity, you’ll be able to see a few of the brightest stars/planets in the night sky, and those are where you want to magnify your image for manually focusing. (Unfortunately, you can’t always just set the lens focus to infinity.)

Once you’ve magnified that bright star or planet in your live view manual focusing window, simply rack your focus back and forth and watch the dot of light. it will go in and out of focus, looking like a big ballon when it is slightly out of focus, and a tiny pinpoint of light when it is perfectly focused. Once you have turned your focus ring back and forth quite a bit just to observe what the transition in and out of focus looks like. You can then slowly, carefully, dial in precise focus on that star.

I would highly recommend checking at least one other star in a different part of the image, too, because many lenses do not have a perfectly flat plane of focus. You might need to make a slight compromise that gets your whole image mostly in-focus.

Milky Way Photography Inspiration

The only thing left to do is to find a really cool foreground to frame in your composition with the night sky. Of course, you already scouted your location before it got dark, so you have a general idea of where the Milky Way core was going to be once it got dark. I’ve certainly done it before, admittedly, but I do not recommend stumbling around in the dark (especially out in the wilderness) trying to find a good composition. That is a recipe for mediocre photos, or worse — you might even put your own physical safety at risk.

Sometimes, the Milky Way will line up perfectly with iconic landscape photography locations. While these spots may be absolutely packed during the day, you could have them all to yourself at 1 am.

You don’t always need to make the Milky Way itself the main focus of your night scape photo. Try making it just a backdrop to a stronger main subject.

In some conditions, the landscape is just too dark to expose properly. That’s okay, you can still capture the night sky beautifully, and let the foreground be mysterious and shadowy.

If the foreground could use a little bit of illumination, and if it is close enough, then you might be able to light it with very little light from a flashlight. Or, in this case, working near a road will often result in a passing car creating perfect illumination for your scene.

Conclusion

Don’t forget to try adding human subjects to your Milky Way photography. If they are distant enough, it is easy to hold still for your 8-15 second exposure.

For more tips, check out Night Photography Ideas, Tips, and Examples.

Without a doubt, getting into Milky Way photography can be an exciting adventure. Thankfully, you don’t need very expensive cameras or lenses to capture a beautiful Milky Way photo. I t is far more important to simply learn how to find the Milky Way core, and when/where to see it. Then, with just a few minutes of practice at nailing perfect focus on stars, you’ll be bringing home truly excellent images to share with your fans and viewers.