Milky Way Advice

Hi Everyone,

I recently ventured out on a rare clear night to photograph the Milky Way at Wembury Beach in Devon near to where I live. I haven't done a lot of this type of photography before, but using my K-3 and a Sigma 10-20mm wide angle lens on a tripod at ISO 3200, f/4.0, 30 secs , I took the image below.




I just wondered, what settings other people use? I thought the image was a bit noisy at ISO 3200, although I'm quite pleased with it for an early attempt. What lenses do people use? Can anyone recommend a really good lens? I have a friend who does this type of photography on a Nikon and raves about a Samyang lens - just wondering what the favoured lens is for us Pentax people!

Hi
Having tried this myself I used my k5 with sigma 17-70
ISO 1600 30 sec and 15 sec at f2.8/3.5
Neil

First of all, very good effort for a first attempt! A key point for Milky Way images is post processing. It really helps if you have shot RAW, nor sure if this is RAW or JPEG. In adobe camera raw / Lightroom, I apply the following for my milky way shots. You may have to do this via a graduated filter as you want to leave foreground as is.

If you can work with the whole image without making the foreground look unreal, then increasing your white point and decreasing your black point may help.
If that spoils your foreground and you need to work via graduated filter affecting the sky only, try playing around with shadows and highlights - how much of each is a matter of experimentation....also in the grad filter, increase clarity - helps astro photos.

Paul

Yes, that's a very good image and I'd like to be able to get anything similar. I was pointed to this article when I asked about astro earlier in the year: https://photographylife.com/how-to-photograph-the-milky-way

Thank you for your kind comments and replies - it's nice to have some feedback!

Thanks Neil for sharing your settings, next time I go out I'll have a play.

Thanks Paul, I should have mentioned that it was shot in RAW and edited in Lightroom CC2015. I tweaked the exposure a little to bring out more stars and played around with the clarity slider, although, not too much!

Thanks for the link to the article Mike! I've booked marked it as there is some really valuable advice in there and I found it really informative - especially the post processing bit! In fact I may even reprocess my image!

Thanks again everyone!

Ok, I've done a quick re-edit. Wow, what a difference!! I just hope I haven't over cooked it. Thank you very much for the article Mike!

Hi
The sky is a lot better now ,the house might be a bit over done for some
But I think it is ok
Neil

Processing certainly brings out more, what a great result for a first attempt.