Learn Milky Way & star photography with this definitive guide, from a full time landscape photographer.

Master the best camera settings, sharp focus, shutter speed, f-stop (controls aperture), and ISO, balancing the exposure triangle for night sky photography.

Step-by-step, easy to follow instructions are 100% actionable for all skill levels.

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Take this Entire Tutorial on Your Next Photography Trip.

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Table of Contents

Jump to any step on this page with the following links or scroll down & read the entire tutorial.

Camera Equipment for Star Photography

Below I’ve provided the minimum equipment requirements and some of the best cameras, lenses and tripods for night photography.

For more information on the equipment / brands I use and recommend visit the Night Sky Photography Camera and Lens Recommendations & What’s In My Camera Bag pages on this website.

Minimum Requirements

Tripod – For any type of night sky photography, a sturdy, well built tripod is one of the most important pieces of equipment.

A cheaply build tripod will shake / move slightly over the long exposure time required for night sky photography, causing blurry images. I currently use and recommend Really Right Stuff tripods, ball heads and L-brackets.

Camera with Manual Mode Functionality – Manual Mode means you can independently and manually adjust the ISO, Aperture, and Exposure time by hand.

The next few items will extremely improve your milky way photos but are not 100% necessary…

I’ve Listed them in the Order of Importance ( If You’re on a Budget 😉 )

Full Frame / 35 mm Camera: A full frame sensor provides a larger surface area to “capture” the light of the stars and Milky way. Using a full frame camera will help to reduce the amount of noise in high ISO images, in turn providing higher quality RAW files.

The Nikon D810, Sony a7R II, are the best full frame night photography cameras with the D810 being my personal preference due to it’s compatibility with the Nikkor 14-24mm lens and tough metal body.

A Wide Angle Lens: I use and recommend an f/2.8 minimum aperture. In short, the smaller the number shown under the “f”, the wider the lens can open. This wide opening will allow your camera’s sensor to pick up as much light as possible in the shortest amount of time.

For full frame cameras, wide angle lenses between 14mm and 20mm ( widest focal length ) are recommended.

For crop sensor cameras, wide angle lenses between 10mm and 17mm ( widest focal length ) are recommended. Apertures of f/2.8 – f/4 are required.

I use and recommend the Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8 lens for night sky and landscape photography. It is the best wide angle lens currently made for landscape and night photography.

Camera Timer / Intervalometer: Most cameras will take up to a 30 second exposure without a timer. If you would like to capture long exposure images of the night sky, longer than 30 seconds, you’ll need a timer.

Amazon has a wide range of timers for all types of cameras. Click Here & Type “Camera Timer” and your camera model into the search bar.

View Night Photography Camera & Lens Recommendations

Planning Your Night Photography Shoot

Free Video Tutorials Included

I created a free video series to walk you through the entire night photography planning process, step by step.

A brief overview of each topic is provided below, but even more detail can be found on the Scouting & Planning for Star, Milky Way & Night Sky Photography Page.

PS: You’ll always want to do the scouting & planning prior to arriving at your shooting destination. This is the best way to ensure great results!

Moon Phase, Dark Skies & Weather

Step 1 – Calculate the Moon Phase: Always Check the Moon Phase first. Milky Way Photography is best on or near the night of the New Moon. In most cases you can shoot approximately 1 week before, 1 week after, and on the night of the New Moon.

This will change slightly depending on where you live on earth and the time of year.

Use Star Date’s Moon Calculator for precise results.

Step 2 – Find Dark Skies: Blue Marble Light Pollution Map works very well for this. Black areas on the map are great for shooting the night sky, while white areas on the map are light polluted and should be avoided.

Step 3 – Find Clear Skies & Predict the Weather:Aiming for nights with 0-50% cloud cover will yield the best results for Milky Way photos. There are many different methods I use to plan for this.

This following video covers steps 1-3.

httpss://youtu.be/Ilf0JJVQnwo

Learn The Photographer’s Ephemeris & Google Earth

Step 4 – Learn The Photographers Ephemeris ( TPE ): The Photographer’s Ephemeris is a map-centric sun and moon calculator: see how the light will fall on the land, day or night, for any location on earth.

TPE also provides precise sunrise, sunset, and twilight times as well as moon rise and moonset times.

Get TPE For: Desktop | iPhone | Android

Step 5 – Learn to Use Google Earth / Maps: Google Earth is my preferred way to plan for any photography trip or shoot. It’s one of the best ways to pre-visualize the topographical layout of a location prior to arriving.

Out of all the tools on this page, Google Maps / Google Earth is where I spend the most time.

Get Google Earth For: Desktop | iPhone | Android

The following video covers step 4 & 5.

httpss://youtu.be/dT93zEXUe3U

Locate the Milky Way – Stellarium

Step 6 – Locate the Milky Way w/ Stellarium: Using Stellarium makes it easy to find the location of the Milky Way in the sky.

If you don’t know when the Milky Way is visible, the following video tutorial will show you exactly when and how to find it in the night sky.

It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope.

This is perfect for visualizing and planning precise and effective night sky photo shoots.

Get Stellarium For: Desktop | iPhone | Android

The following video covers step 6.

httpss://youtu.be/oHQHf9Ni5C4

Focusing Your Lens at Night

Prior to correctly focusing your lens, it will be impossible to effectively perform any type of night photography. Due to this fact, this section has been placed first.

Upon learning these skills you will be able to move forward and learn all of the other material provided below.

Basic Concepts to Apply While Learning the Section Below:

Since the stars are very far away with respect to where we stand on Earth, focusing at or near infinity (∞) will provide perfectly sharp photos of the stars, Milky Way & night sky.

Most lenses have an “∞” symbol on them which is used to mark the approximate infinity focus point. Just because you focus your lens to this infinity symbol doesn’t mean it will take a perfectly sharp photo. This proves true for all types of photography.

Most lenses need to be adjusted slightly more to ensure sharp focus, but “∞” is a great place to start.

Learn The Exact Settings & Techniques Below

Focusing Your Lens at Night – Camera Technique

There are 6 more night photography focusing techniques provided in my ebook, Photograph the Night Sky.

You can also reference my Sharp Focus Photography Guide & Videos for landscape & outdoor photography.

Method 1 – Preset Your Focus Point During the Day

It’s much easier to focus during the day than at night, for you and your camera’s autofocus software.

Step 1: Set up your camera during the day with the lens you will be using to take your night / low light photos. You can do this at your house, or anywhere else that’s easy, it doesn’t have to be at the location where you plan on taking your night photos.

You’ll want to open the lens to the widest focal length possible. For example, this would be 14mm on a 14-24mm lens.

Step 2: Adjust your lens to focus at infinity, or at a far away horizon. I always like to use my camera’s Live View Mode, zoomed in, and focus on the furthest horizon in my composition.

This will ensure that you’ve focused at infinity. You can also focus by looking through your camera’s view finder. This works very well too.

Step 3: Manually make the final adjustments if / as required using the focus ring. I find that Auto Focus usually does very well during the day, but sometimes needs manual input to nail down the final focus in low light.

Step 4: Take some more practice shots at an aperture of f/8 – f/11 and make sure the entire photo is in focus. If it isn’t focused, repeat Step 2 and Step 3, until it is. This is your infinity focus point.

Step 5: Using a permanent marker ( silver sharpie is easy to see at night ), mark both the focus ring, and the barrel of the lens (non-rotating part of lens). Tape works as well, but may fall off over time.

Step 6: You found your infinity focal point for a given focal length. Remember! If you change your focal length your focal point will change as well. I shoot all my night sky photos at 14mm to make things easy:)

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Camera Settings for Milky Way & Star Photography

If you want to learn more about the photography fundamentals such as shutter speed, ISO, f-stop(controls aperture), the exposure triangle, and more, check out my Photography Fundamentals Tutorial Series.

To be clear and concise on the night photography settings I’ve provided a quick reference list below.

In the sections following this section, detailed explanations are provided for selecting Exposure Time ( using the 500 Rule ) and ISO Settings.

Here are the Best Camera Settings for Milky Way & Star Photography:

Camera Mode: Manual Mode – This mode allows you to independently and manually adjust the ISO, Aperture, and Exposure time by hand.

Image Format: RAW Image Format

Metering Mode: I find Center Weighted Average on my Nikon D800 to work the best for night photography.

White / Color Balance: For all night photography I use and recommend Kelvin Values between 4000K-5500K. More than average I find myself shooting at 4200-4500K. This works best under extremely dark skies with no light pollution.

Reference my White Balance Shooting Technique Video, for more info on using Kelvin mode for landscape & outdoor photography.

F-Stop / Aperture: I recommend f/2.8 or your widest aperture value. I do not recommend shooting at apertures wider ( number under f is smaller ) than f/2.8. Although wider apertures such as f/1.8 do pick up more light, they are also very hard to focus at night. You’ll see the best / sharpest image results using f/2.8.

Focal Length: Approximate focal lengths of 14-24 mm for full frame cameras and 10-20mm for crop sensor cameras. Reference the Selecting Exposure Time Section below for complete details on selecting the ideal focal length using the 500 Rule.

The larger your focal length, the shorter your exposure times will have to become per the 500 Rule (taught in next section of tutorial below), so wider is always better. Nearly all of my images are taken at 14mm using a Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8 lens and a Nikon D810 Camera.

Exposure Time / Shutter Speed: Anywhere from 10-40 seconds depending on your lens. Reference the Selecting Exposure Time Section below for complete details on optimal settings.

ISO Settings: ISO settings of ISO2500-6400 are the best camera settings for Milky Way photography. Reference the ISO Settings Section below for complete details on which ISO settings you should use.

In Camera Noise Reduction Settings: The following settings only apply to JPEG files. Since we always shoot in RAW, turn all of them off.

Reference my Simple & Powerful Noise Reduction for Star, Milky Way & Night Sky Photography Tutorial for complete details on why I choose each of the following settings.

Long Exposure Noise Reduction Setting – Set to Off

High ISO Noise Reduction Setting – Set to Off

View My Latest Night Sky Photos

Exposure Time / Shutter Speed Settings

The 500 Rule Explained – Night Photography Exposure Chart