Foreground is Everything

"Who Needs TV?" ~ © Michael Shainblum (click image for EXIF info)

In good Milky Way landscape photography, the right foreground makes the shot. It determines whether the photo is truly memorable, or just another another pretty night sky photo.

A pretty starry night sky is not enough: When I take my workshop attendees on their first attempt to photograph the starry night sky, they are blown away with what they can see on their LCD monitors. However, by the second night they begin to expect much more from their instructor and themselves. Even a beautiful capture of the Milky Way with a simple silhouette of the horizon line is not enough. They soon realize that it is the relationship with the foreground and the sky that really makes the shot. It is what they choose to put in that foreground, where they place it in relation to the sky, and more often than not, how they choose to light that foreground that determines how successful that photo will be in satisfying themselves and their viewers.

Photo of the Week (POTW): Michael Shainblum was able to bring all those elements together in this unique perspective that speaks volumes. Concerning this photo, he said, "Who honestly needs to watch trashy television programs or garbage commercials and advertisements, when right out our doorsteps are some of the most incredible viewing experiences…"

An interview with Michael and a time-lapse video of his home town, San Diego, was recently featured on the Roger Hedgecock Show. He is is currently pursuing a degree at Brooks Insitute of Photography in Santa Barbara. More of Michael Shainblum's photography can be seen on his website.

Night Focusing the Rokinon 14mm Lens

MilkyWay over String Lake, taken with the Rokinon 14mm lens ~ © Royce Bair

Many have purchased the Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 lens for starry night photography, at my recommendation, and then have written to me about their difficultly in focusing this lens for night photography.

Focus Frustrations and Fix: I must admit, that the first time I tried to focus this manual lens I was a bit bewildered. It seemed to stay in focus no matter what I did! This is due to the incredible depth of field of this 114º angle lens, even wide open. After considerable tests in the daylight and field testing at night, I can make the following recommendations: Don't focus on the infinity mark (some are even confused as to what position the infinity mark is located on the lens barrel).

Left: This is NOT the infinity position. Right: This is the infinity position.
HOWEVER, I recommend the following focus position below:

This is the focus position I recommend when shooting 'NightScapes':
Shoot at f/2.8, and set your focus halfway between the 10-feet mark and the infinity mark.

Hyperfocal Distance correction: Some hyperfocal charts will recommend focusing on 7-feet (actually, 7.62 feet—saying that everything from 3.81 feet to infinity will now be in focus). I find that I get better infinity sharpness at my focus position, and I still get good depth of field in to about 10 feet. I think this is because most hyperfocal DOF charts are based on the sharpness quality of an 8x10 inch print, whereas I want 16x20 and even 30x40 quality. (Quoting the Cambridge in Colour website about hyperfocal distances: "... it's often helpful to use a more rigorous requirement for 'acceptably sharp,' or to focus slightly further and improve background sharpness.")

Best Ultra-Wide Lenses for Starry Night Photography: The Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 lens has incredible coma correction and quality for a lens of it's price (about $350). It surpasses the coma aberration correction (even wide open) of most lenses in its ultra wide-angle category. I find it has about 1.5 stops of light fall-off in the corners (vignetting), which is easily corrected in the Adobe Raw Converter (via Photoshop or Lightroom). It is also a little soft in the edges, unless you stop down to about f5.6 or smaller; however, I don't recommend doing that if you're using the lens for high-ISO night photography—just keep this lens wide open, and place important areas away from the edges or corners of your composition. When doing daylight landscape photography, I found this lens performed optimally at f/11, with the focus set at 7-feet (f/16 was also very good, but at f/22, I began to notice a little bit of diffraction).  If you're a Nikon user (and can afford to shell out about $2,000), the only other lens I'd recommend in this category is the Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8 lens. This lens is well-corrected in every area, and is sharper than most prime lenses. It is a little sharper than the Rokinon, especially in the corners. Some Canon users like it so much, they even have the Nikon mount adapted to fit their EOS bodies!

Full-resolution crop of the top photo. Enlarge or download this image to see for yourself the quality of the
Rokinon 14mm when used wide open at f/2.8—just keep in mind that you're also seeing the coarseness of an
ISO 6400 image that has had some noise reduction in the ARC software (which tends to soften shadow detail).

Recognizing the Milky Way in a Light-Polluted Sky

Milky Way rising over Silver Lake near Brighton, Utah ~ © Royce Bair (click to enlarge).
Reddish glow on the left is light pollution from Park City, and on the right is from Heber City.

Last Friday, I participated in an evening photowalk with about 100 local photographers. With the help of a lecture I gave a few days before, I guided many on their first ever photographs of a starry night sky. For several, it was a dream-fulfilled to see and photograph their first Milky Way.

People from big cities throughout the world often write and tell me that they'd love to see and photograph the Milky Way, but it is too light-polluted in their region. For the most part, that's true. However, in almost any area of the world, you can still see the Milky Way if you're willing to drive a few miles and train your eyes to see the shape and features of our galaxy—viewed from the perspective of our planet.

The above photo was taken only 11 miles from the edge of Salt Lake City, and we are still in a 'orange' zone according to Dark Sky Finder's map of the area. Even after the Milky Way appeared at 11:00 PM, in the region that I had predicted, many still could not see it until I photographed it and showed it to them on my camera's LCD monitor:

Even this raw, unprocessed view is 4X brighter than the naked eye view, because of the
light-gathering power of a 20-seconds time exposure, a fast lens, and a high ISO.

It's not hard to recognize the Milky Way in the top, post-processed photo, but it takes some education, experience, and practice to recognize the features of our galaxy, especially in a light-polluted sky, where the contrast and colors of the stars are muted by stray, artificial light.

More light-gathering: The top photo is a double-exposure of the middle image and this 3X exposure to increase the detail in the landscape and the reflection in the lake water:

A 60-seconds exposure washes out the sky and blurs the stars, but adds detail to the landscape. Adding the post-processed sky (mainly contrast adjustments in Photoshop's 'Curves') from the middle image produces the final photo (top).