Keeping Our Galaxy Real: How Not To Overprocess the Milky Way

Note: This post concludes with a video of Gabe walking through how to process a realistic-looking Milky Way. Want to jump straight to that? Click here.

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Do you remember the first time you saw the Milky Way?

So few of us have access to starry skies that the wow factor was undoubtedly very high. What you saw on the back of your camera and then on your monitor was even more exciting, and in this excitement you probably pushed your post-processing to bring out the stars just a bit more … and just a bit more … and just a bit more … and. …

This is a very normal and common experience. However, taken too far, it also detracts from reality—many of the night images we see online simply do not reflect what the Milky Way actually looks like.

In this post, I aim to help you process your Milky Way shots in a more natural and realistic way.

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Milky Way panorama. Nikon D750 with a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens at 14mm. Seven stitched frames shot at 30 seconds, f/4, ISO 6400.

Star Witnesses

If you search the 3 million images tagged #milkyway on Instagram, you’ll notice that over 80 percent of them are overprocessed.

What do I mean by that? In those images, the Milky Way looks very unrealistic—too contrasty, over-sharpened and full of colors that jump out at you. In short, it looks like no Milky Way we have ever seen in the actual sky.

Yet the likes and positive comments pile on! Why is this?

The general public is still unfamiliar with what the Milky Way really looks like. Their only experience with it is what they see online. The Milky Way still has a high wow factor, and as technology and post-processing techniques become more powerful, photographers can eke out all sorts of additional detail. The problem is that so many eke out every detail.

We want to bring a realistic vision back to the Milky Way. The Milky Way should be the chorus to your song, but all good songs have a gradual build: highs and lows that build to that chorus. A good photograph should guide us throughout the whole image with a similar tempo.

Below is an example of a Milky Way image that is processed naturally versus one overprocessed in a way that’s commonly seen on the web. Note that in the overprocessed version the tonal range is not as smooth, the colors are too punchy, and there is very little separation between the Milky Way and the stars that surround it.

The left version might look "wow," but the right is closer to what the Milky Way actually looks like. Nikon Z 6 with a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens at 14mm. 15 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 12,800.

Avoiding Overprocessing

Most overprocessing pitfalls can be rectified by fewer global adjustments and more local adjustments. I know the global tools in Lightroom’s Basic module are right there and ready to use. But the astro-landscape photo is made of two different elements of exposure: the sky and the landscape. They often require different considerations on how to process them.

Globally applying Dehaze because it will successfully enhance your sky could very well have an adverse effect on the colors and shadows of your foreground. Unless your foreground is a silhouette, it’s best to think of your Milky Way image as two images and process them accordingly with local brushes and gradients.

If you are working under dark skies with little to no moonlight, you might even consider shooting two images: one correctly exposed for the stars and another longer exposure that reveals detail in the foreground. (I covered this type of blending of two images in my previous blog and video about Starry Landscape Stacker.)

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An example of a blended image. First I shot a lower-ISO long exposure during civil twilight for the foreground, then a higher-ISO sharp-star exposure for the background, and layered the two in post-production. Being able to process the foreground and background separately allowed me to maintain a more realistic Milky Way. Hasselblad X1D with a Hasselblad 30mm f/3.5 lens. Foreground: 6 minutes, f/4, ISO 800; background: 23 seconds, f/4, ISO 6400.

Presence Sliders in Lightroom

Texture, Clarity and Dehaze are very attractive tools, as they can increase local contrast in a scene and really make an image pop. However, overusing them can lead to crushed shadows and unwanted shifts in color (as seen in the blog post linked above).

Think of these three adjustments as coming with great responsibility. To understand what they do, crank them to 100 percent, then slowly bring them back, and toggle between your full view and 100 percent to see how they fundamentally affect your image. Then when processing, use them judiciously.

• Texture

The newest filter in Lightroom (and the one I am most enamored by) increases sharpness without amplified grain or saturation. However, when overused, every star is sharpened and jumps out in the sky. This can compete too much with the Milky Way as well as falsely make every star look as bright as the next.

Depending on the scene, I like to add 3 to 8 points of Texture to my Milky Way by using a brush to add the effect locally. If I go above 10 on Texture, I really need to examine the effect at 100 percent zoom to make sure I’m not overdoing it. (However, that threshold applies only to the sky. If I have a well-lit rocky landscape, Texture is just what the doctor ordered to enhance the granularity of those rocks—for that I might use anywhere between 20 and 60 points.)

• Clarity

I often use Clarity in lieu of the Contrast slider. I’ll adjust my white and black points first. Then, if the Milky Way needs more punch, I’ll slide Clarity to anywhere from 5 to 25. However, I always keep an eye on the top corners of my image, as Clarity quickly heightens any vignetting and can make smooth graduations in the sky seem choppy.

• Dehaze

Brings contrast and saturation to an image. The former is great for boosting the low contrast that is often found in night skies. But keep an eye on that saturation—that’s where blues get wonky real quick. I never apply Dehaze globally; I typically apply it only via the Graduated Filter tool. My Dehaze adjustments can vary depending on the scene, but they usually range between 10 and 30.

It is also very important when you are combining global and local adjustments to remember that they build on top of each other. If you’re not precise in your workflow, you might get stuck fighting back and forth between how your global and local adjustments overlap and affect each other, sending you down the road of overprocessing. To avoid this, hone your global adjustments first, and only then start with the local changes to your Milky Way.

Another important thing to keep in mind is that our editing tools grow and change over time. I love Texture, but just a few years ago that tool wasn’t even in my imagination. It didn’t exist until about this time last year! Be sure to always keep a lookout for innovations in Lightroom that you can use to make your images better and better.

For example, I recently revisited the very first successful Milky Way image I’d ever shot. I hadn’t overprocessed then, but I had processed it with Lightroom 3 (below, left). That was a great program for its time, but it had some limitations compared to what’s on my computer today. Now, using Lightroom Classic 2020 (below, right), I get some finer detail out of the file.

Shot in 2010 with a Nikon D700 with a Zeiss 21mm f/2.8 lens at 30 seconds, f/4, ISO 6400. Left: Processed in Lightroom 3 with +12 Clarity, +11 Vibrance and +20 Luminance Noise Reduction. Right: Processed in Lightroom Classic 2020 with more subtle local adjustments, less noise reduction and more magenta.

Putting it All Together

I made this video that walks through my considerations for processing the Milky Way in a more natural way. I point out the sliders that we might slip too far on, and I share my Milky Way brush technique for subtly bringing out the finer details.

Now, if you’re one of the overprocessing culprits … First, know that you have a lot of company. But second, know there’s a better way, and we’re happy to help.

Stop processing the Milky Way with a hammer and a bucket of paint, and then share your images with us below in the comments. Or, better yet, share them online on Facebook or Instagram! Tag @nationalparksatnight and let’s educate the world on what the natural Milky Way really looks like!

Gabriel Biderman is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night. He is a Brooklyn-based fine art and travel photographer, and author of Night Photography: From Snapshots to Great Shots (Peachpit, 2014). During the daytime hours you'll often find Gabe at one of many photo events around the world working for B&H Photo’s road marketing team. See his portfolio and workshop lineup at www.ruinism.com.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

Shooting Downtown After Sundown—Light Painting in the Urban Environment

Light painting in an urban environment can be quite a different experience if you are primarily accustomed to working in natural landscapes. For example:

• Moonlit landscapes are probably the easiest situations for light painting. You can work with any combination of exposure variables. There’s no pressure to get the lighting done quickly, so there is usually plenty of time to develop and execute a plan to get the shot. The working conditions are relatively constant, and the ambient light is easy to deal with.

• Light painting in astro-landscape conditions is often addressed with Low-level Landscape Lighting (LLL), which involves using a very dim continuous light source (or sources) in a fixed position. LLL eliminates the pressure of scrambling to fully light a scene in the short 15- to 30-second exposure time required to keep stars as points of light. Many light painting tools are too bright to effectively control when working with high ISOs, wide apertures and relatively short shutter speeds. Still, the approach is often straight-forward.

On the other hand, light painting in urban or artificially lit environments presents a couple of different challenges from light painting a natural landscape. The first is extreme scene dynamic range or contrast, and the second is the potential for wildly varying color temperatures of existing light sources. But both of those challenges also can be part of what makes urban night photography and light painting rewarding, as I will show in the following examples.

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Figure 1. Plymouth Waterfront. To expose properly for this image, I had to use less exposure than I would have liked to avoid clipping the highlights in the background. This left the wall in the foreground severely underexposed, and thus ripe for light painting. Nikon D750 with a Nikon 24-120mm f/4 lens at 55mm, light painted with a Coast HP7R flashlight. 30 seconds, f/8, ISO 140.

In Figure 1, the Plymouth waterfront scene was illuminated primarily by high pressure sodium vapor lights, supplemented by a metal halide light on the building in the background. I had to underexpose the image to keep the background structure from blowing out, which left the wall of the foreground building in deep shadow. My strategy was to expose for the most important highlights and allow the rest of the exposure to fall into place.

It was a perfect opportunity to use light painting to fill in the underexposed shadows. I scraped the light from a Coast HP7R along the edge of the building, from out of the frame to camera left. This brought out the texture of the wall and the ivy.

The choice of a (more or less) daylight white-balanced LED flashlight contrasted with the very warm sodium light that illuminated the foreground, middleground and tree. The combination of both the angle and color of the added light provided depth and another layer of texture to the otherwise ordinary scene. Mundane subject matter can be made much more interesting with effective lighting.

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Figure 2. Burial Hill Cemetery. Located in downtown Plymouth, Massachusetts, the cemetery is the final resting place of several Pilgrims and of the founders of the Plymouth colony. Canon 5D Mark II with a Nikkor 28mm PC f/3.5 lens. 4 minutes, f/8, ISO 400.

Figure 2 is an example of a scene where the overall illumination is a combination of mostly high pressure sodium vapor lights and moonlight. The cemetery sits on a hill above the town, and as a result receives mostly indirect light. The golden-orange glow on the trees indicates sodium vapor lighting, and the purplish sky gives away that moonlight was present. Without moonlight, the sky would likely have appeared black, or almost so due to the exposure difference between the dark sky and the brightly lit street scene.

The gravestones were subtly lit by the combination of the various ambient lights, some indirect, some direct (hence the shadows), but the sum total gives a warm white balance. I chose a cool, daylight-balanced flashlight and backlighting to create a more dramatic effect. Notice the greenish edges and rim lighting on the stones. If you look carefully, you might just spot a ghost or two, but they are probably not the ghosts of pilgrims. I’m reasonably sure that pilgrims did not wear jeans.

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Figure 3. Winthrop, Massachusetts. From left: sodium vapor streetlight with LED flashlight and daylight white balance, simulated tungsten flashlight with tungsten white balance, LED flashlight with tungsten white balance. Canon 5D Mark II with a Canon 24-105mm f/4 lens at 55mm. 30 seconds, f/8, ISO 100.

When shooting in the mixed light of an urban environment, it’s important to consider the different appearances of the various light sources, as well as how your light painting will complement or contrast.

In Figure 3, the ambient lighting is again primarily very warm sodium vapor, and I did the light painting with a much cooler LED flashlight. On the left, the white balance is set to daylight, which matches the color of the light painting. On the right, the white balance is set to tungsten, which still gives a slightly warm appearance to the image, but the light-painted subject contrasts strongly with the background.

For the version in the center, the white balance is also set to tungsten, but I have simulated the look of a light painting source that is matched to the overall scene. I did this in Lightroom with a local adjustment and the new Hue slider to illustrate how using a light painting tool that has a similar color temperature to the ambient light compares to one with a contrasting white balance.

In those three examples, you can see how adjusting the white balance either to match the overall scene or to match the light painting can affect the look and feel of the image, as well as the relationship between objects lit with different light sources.

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Figure 4. Providence, Rhode Island. I used a bright flashlight at a low angle to simulate the look of car headlights on the SUV. Mixed street lighting with LED flashlight. Canon 5D Mark II with a Nikkor 28mm PC f/3.5 lens. 10 seconds, f/8, ISO 200.

In Figure 4, the red light in the window and the three giant smokestacks are what drew me to this scene in Providence, Rhode Island. I didn’t want to include the SUV on the right side of the frame, but it wasn’t going anywhere so I had to make the best of it. My solution was to get behind the SUV and hit it with the brightest flashlight that I had to make it look like another car was approaching from behind. Yet again, the cooler color of the light painting contrasts with the warmer street lighting.

If you’ve seen my light-painted landscape photographs, then you may remember that I use a similar technique when photographing under natural light: I usually use a warm, yellowish incandescent light to contrast the cooler, blue natural light in the landscape. Same idea in Figure 4, but the colors are reversed.

Now that LED street lighting is becoming more dominant, and urban lighting is becoming more color-neutral, my urban light painting strategy is changing. These days, carrying a warm- and a cool-color temperature light to contrast or blend in with existing light isn’t always enough.

Fortunately there are a range of new light painting tools available these days with variable brightness and color adjustments. Any regular reader of our blog will be familiar with the Luxli Viola (which we use mostly for Low-level Landscape Lighting), but there are other useful tools, such as the similarly versatile Nanlite PavoTube 6C and the more directional ProtoMachine LED8.

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Figure 5. Under the Zakim Bridge, Boston. I set the white balance to 2400 K to neutralize the color of the light on the concrete structures, so the daylight-balanced LED raked low across the labyrinth appears very blue. The color and quality of the light helped to juxtapose the soft spirals against the cold hard concrete forms of the highway in the background. Canon 5D Mark II with a Zuiko Shift 24mm f/3.5 lens. 2 minutes, f/8, ISO 100.

To me, the many different light sources that come from all directions and in lots of different colors is a big part of what makes photographing in urban environments exciting. Rather than trying to “correct” for the different colors of mixed lighting, I find it much more rewarding to work with the contrast and color.

Wrapping Up

A few other things to consider when working in artificially lit environments:

• Let light be your subject. Allow yourself to be drawn in by light as much as (if not even more than) by the physical forms in your image.

• Smaller, more intimate scenes often make for better photographs in the urban jungle. It’s easier to manage the extreme contrast of street lighting in a smaller, contained space.

• Look for scenes with different light sources falling on distinct surfaces. Mixed lighting can be your friend.

• In general, avoid including light sources in your photos. Rules are meant to be broken, but hiding a light behind a sign or a tree, or even around a corner, is an effective way to cut down on contrast and to reduce the chance of flare in your image. But be careful of lights just outside the frame—these are the ones that really cause flare.

• Understand that you will need to add a lot more light to an urban scene than you may be accustomed to when working by starlight or moonlight. Because urban scenes are brighter, we usually work at native ISO for the best image quality in dynamic environments—and that means you need to add more light than you would at lower ISOs.

• Just as in nature, add light to fill in dark shadows, or to add emphasis to an important part of your scene.

• Stay alert. Keep an eye on your gear, be aware of people around you, and watch out for traffic that may not be aware of you or your camera’s presence.

Night photography and light painting by artificial light in the built environment is a lot of fun, and it harks back to the earliest days of night photography when the available materials were not sensitive enough to record an image by starlight or moonlight. Urban night photography presents different challenges than photographing a landscape at night, and with the right mindset adjustment, it can be equally rewarding.

As always we’d love to see any images inspired by our blog posts, so tag us on Instagram (@nationalparksatnight), or post in the comments or to our Facebook page.

Lance Keimig is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night. He has been photographing at night for 30 years, and is the author of Night Photography and Light Painting: Finding Your Way in the Dark (Focal Press, 2015). Learn more about his images and workshops at www.thenightskye.com.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

Five Questions: Coast Flashlights, Lightning, Custom Menus and More

Everyone knows the answers to some questions, and below you’ll find five of the answers we know. That might sound impressive, but it took all five of us to answer these, so …

This installment of our “Five Questions” series features inquiries about Coast flashlights, lightning processing, custom menus, books and panos.

If you have any questions you would like to throw our way, please contact us anytime. Questions could be about gear, national parks and other photo locations, post-processing techniques, field etiquette, or anything else related to night photography. #SeizeTheNight!

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1: Which Coast is King?

Q: If you could have only one model of the Coast flashlight, what would it be? — Larry B.

A: If I could have only one, it would be the HP5R. It has two brightness settings, is bright but not too bright, feaures a focusing beam and sports a rechargeable battery. For another $10, I'd also get the low-powered G9 and use that for shooting in moonless astro-landscape situations and for seeing in the dark without ruining night vision. — Lance

2: Layering Lightning

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Lightning at Devils Tower National Monument. © 2019 Matt Hill. Nikon Z 6 with a Sigma 35mm f/1.4 Art lens. Six stacked frames photographed at Bulb, f/8, ISO 200.

Q: There’s a photo on your website you made at Devils Tower—how did you get the lightning in the shot? Did you just stack the exposures in Photoshop then use the Lighten blend mode? Or did you use some light detector to trigger the shots? — Ed F.

A: The former. I composed, set the aperture and ISO for a good lightning strike, then let the camera run through continuous shots. I set the camera to Bulb mode, then I held the shutter open until a bolt hit, and then I closed the exposure and immediately started another.

Why did I just keep the shutter open for, say, 30 seconds each time? I didn’t want too many strikes in one frame, because that would make it harder to select specific strikes to composite later.

As for post-production, your hunch is right— it works exactly like stacking star trails. Open all the images as layers in Photoshop, select all the layers and then change the blend mode to Lighten. I then used layer masks to call out specific strikes and block out everything else. — Matt

3. Custom Menu Contents

Q: Regarding your recent post “Five Field Tips to Make Night Photography Go a Little Smoother,” could you elaborate on which menu options you include on your custom menu? — Larry B.

A: As I mentioned in the post, I set the custom menu in my camera with the settings I use most often, so I can access them quickly in the field. Here is the list of what I include in my Nikon Z 6 custom menu:

For night photography

• Long Exposure Noise Reduction

• Monitor Brightness

• Viewfinder Brightness

For general photography

• Format Memory Card

• Auto Bracketing

• Double Exposure

• Focus Peaking

• Clean Image Sensor

For comparison, here’s what Chris includes in his Nikon D5 custom menu:

• Virtual Horizon

• Monitor Brightness

• Long Exposure Noise Reduction

• Exposure Delay Mode

• Self-Timer

Remember, every camera is different, so your camera might allow you to easily access some items that I find more difficult to access on mine. You also might not use some features that I do, and vice versa. But this is all exactly why the custom menu is so powerful—it’s custom to exactly what you want! — Tim

4. The Elephant Book in the Room

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Q: Thank you for the recent awesome blog post and video on night photography books. That combined three of my favorite things: history, books and art. Another night photography-related book you may find interesting is Thirty Times a Minute by Colleen Plumb. She photographed images of captive elephants projected onto landscapes. I found it a very unique way to shoot at night, and her stories about the elephants are touching. — Vince G.

A: One look at the production and importance of Thirty Times a Minute and I had to add it to my cart! I love that the publisher added a video walk through of the book.

Not all art fits inside a book, and when you look at Colleen's projections, you have to ask how these moving images become two-dimensional stills. I love the “transparency” images, though I'm curious what it would have looked like to have the transparency of the original film placed over where it was projected—like those history books wherein you lift the transparency of what it used to look like to reveal what it looks like now.

I’m glad you like our coverage of our favorite night photography books and the Bookshelf page on our website. Books can be a universal inspiration, and this was a long-overdue project that we were excited to share and that we want to continue to grow. — Gabe

5: Full Moon Pano

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Ubehebe Crater, Death Valley National Park. © 2020 Chris Nicholson. Nikon D5 with a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens at 24mm. Eleven stitched frames photographed at 10 seconds, f/5.6, ISO 2500.

Q: Thank you for the many instructive and inspiring blog posts, and particularly for this one about Ubehebe Crater. Either you planned well or were lucky to be there during a full moon. Could you have gotten a good image with quarter moon? Crescent moon? No moon? — Paul B.

A: Did I plan or was I lucky? A little bit of both.

I made that pano during a workshop, which we had planned for a moonlit week. We love light painting under moonlight, and Death Valley has a lot of subject matter conducive to that strategy. But shooting at the crater on that particular date during moonlight was just a matter of using the conditions at hand in the best way possible.

In other words, while planning for a specific photo has plenty of merits, successfully shooting as a long-term endeavor can have less to do with sticking to strict guidelines about when to shoot and more to do with knowing what and how to shoot in different conditions. With the latter approach, I can be productive regardless of the situation. So, I didn’t plan to be at Ubehebe Crater during a full moon so I could shoot that pano; rather, I was at Ubehebe and knew what I could and couldn’t do under the full-moon sky I was presented with.

And yes, I definitely could have made the image under a quarter or crescent moon, when the light is even gentler. I just would have needed to shoot at a higher ISO to keep the stars sharp. Honestly, I may have preferred that, because the sky would have revealed even more stars. Next time! Because successful photography can also be about going back to re-shoot in different conditions. 😃 — Chris

Chris Nicholson is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night, and author of Photographing National Parks (Sidelight Books, 2015). Learn more about national parks as photography destinations, subscribe to Chris' free e-newsletter, and more at www.PhotographingNationalParks.com.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

Nights of the Comet: Our Photos and Experiences with NEOWISE

Night photography isn’t just our livelihood—it’s also our passion, and our art. As much as we love to teach, we also love to venture into the field and shoot, especially when something special is happening in the sky. Comet NEOWISE certainly met the standard of “something special.”

So a couple of weeks ago, when the comet began appearing among the stars, we knew we wanted to get out to make some photos of it. Lance and I were heading to coastal Maine to run back-to-back moonless workshops. Matt was at home in the beautiful Catskill Mountains of New York. All three of us were in perfect places at perfect times.

NEOWISE is now fading from view, but won’t be fading from memories. Below you’ll find some of the images we created.

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Lance

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A single exposure of Comet NEOWISE and the Monhegan Lighthouse made by covering and uncovering the lens for 3-second intervals. The slowly rotating light has six beams and makes a full rotation once every minute and a half. I first worked on this technique last year during our Cape Cod workshop while photographing Nauset Light in Eastham, Massachusetts. Nauset Light’s beam rotates much faster, and required covering and uncovering the lens a couple of times per second. Chris figured out that 3-second intervals worked well for this one, and I got lucky with this shot by using his timing. · Nikon D750 with a Tamron 15-30mm f/2.8 lens at 20mm. 25 seconds, f/3.2, ISO 6400.

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A dory and the back of the keeper’s house at Monhegan Lighthouse, with Comet NEOWISE between the roof peaks. This is a composite of two exposures––one for the sky and a second longer exposure for the foreground. A smaller aperture was needed for depth of field, which necessitated the higher ISO for the sky shot and a longer exposure for the foreground. This type of subject matter is exactly the kind of thing that I love to shoot, and I would have made the same composition even without the comet. Bonus! · Nikon D750 with a Nikon 24-120mm f/4 lens at 44mm. Sky shot at 10 seconds, f/4.5, ISO 12,800; foreground shot at 70 seconds, f/4.5, ISO 6400.

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Jordan Pond and the famous Bubbles of Acadia National Park, with the comet in the northwestern sky. A composite of different exposures for the foreground and sky. I generally like to get everything in one frame, but the short shutter speeds required to keep the stars and comet sharp combined with the need to stop down for depth of field made this image virtually impossible without compositing. I partially desaturated and added a fair amount of contrast, both to make the image bolder and to minimize any noise issues from the high ISOs. · Nikon D750 with a Tamron 15-30mm f/2.8 lens at 17mm. Sky shot at 25 seconds, f/4, ISO 6400; foreground shot at 270 seconds, f/4, ISO 6400.

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Matt

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It’s been really cloudy here in the Catskills, and when I finally had a clear night, it was cloudy at the horizon. So I really did not get a crack at NEOWISE until the night of the new moon on July 20. I started with my 15mm lens and shot single images. At first I was surprised and a little unhappy about the light pollution—but then I reminded myself that with the new moon everything would have been dark, and the light pollution illuminated the valley below and gave context to the image. · Nikon Z 6 with a Venus Optics Laowa 15mm f/2 FE Zero-D lens. 15 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 6400.

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When I saw the massive galactic core behind me over the mountain, I wanted to shoot for a Milky Way arch with the comet. With 13 images and a really aggressive tilt upward, I was totally surprised the stitch worked. I usually shoot dead level. And I think the S-curve of the mountain to the valley along the bottom works well. I also love the comet arcing in the same curve as the Milky Way. All in all, I was happy with the one night of shooting. Alas, it’s been cloudy ever since! · Nikon Z 6 with a Venus Optics Laowa 15mm f/2 FE Zero-D lens. 13 stitched frames shot at 20 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 6400.

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Chris

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This was my first real chance to focus on photographing the comet. I’d seen it a few times in the nights prior, but had been focused on helping workshop participants so didn’t shoot anything more than a snapshot. But on this night it was just Lance and I out working together at the Monhegan Island Lighthouse in Maine. The evening started off foggy, and the comet wasn’t even on our radar. But suddenly the northern and western skies cleared (that kind of thing can happen in New England), and there it was! I framed the comet between the fog bell and the keeper’s quarters; I light painted the former, and the lighthouse painted the latter. · Nikon D5 with a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens, light painted with a Luxli Viola. 25 seconds, f/3.5, ISO 6400.

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I’d spotted this scene earlier in the evening, and came back to it as my last stop of the night—once the comet had set low enough. I saw it as a black and white image from conception, partly because the color temperatures were different on the horizon and in the window, and partly because it just felt like an old-time black and white scene. What I didn’t realize, even in the dark, was that the long exposure would reveal in the window someone’s head on the pillow. Why were they sleeping through the comet? · Nikon D5 with a Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens. 16 frames shot at 5 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 25,600, stacked in Sequator.

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For a week I knew I wanted to photograph the comet over Jordan Pond in Acadia National Park—one of my happy places. When we got there, the night was perfectly clear, and I got my chance for this pano. · Nikon D5 with a Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens. Six stitched frames shot at 15 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 6400.

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My favorite images I’ve seen of the comet are those that incorporate it into a landscape or a wider scene, so that’s mostly what I tried to work on. But I wanted to make just one portrait of NEOWISE. I did so from the northwest shores of Monhegan Island. I liked the blend of colors from the horizon into the deeper blue of the night sky, as well as the deep blues of the Atlantic below—so that became my backdrop for NEOWISE. · Nikon D5 with a Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens. 32 frames shot at 5 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 25600, stacked in Sequator.

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Wrapping Up

Now that we’ve shown you our images, we’d love to see yours! Please share your comet photos and stories in the comments or on our Facebook page, or post them on Instagram and tag @nationalparksatnight. Or all three!

Chris Nicholson is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night, and author of Photographing National Parks (Sidelight Books, 2015). Learn more about national parks as photography destinations, subscribe to Chris' free e-newsletter, and more at www.PhotographingNationalParks.com.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

Capturing the Comet: How to Photograph the Night Surprise of NEOWISE

The lighthouse on Monhegan Island is an amazing place to shoot at night. But then we saw the comet, and the lighthouse may as well have not even existed. We quickly moved away from the compositions we’d been working so hard on and focused on the celestial visitor instead.

Lance and I are midway through a two-week trip to Maine, where we’re leading two workshops along some of the most beautiful coastline in the U.S. And gosh did we (and the attending night photographers) luck out, because our time here coincided perfectly with the astronomy surprise of the year: Comet NEOWISE.

Photographing the comet quickly became high on the priority list not only for our participants, but also for us. It’s not common to get such an opportunity—once every 7 millennia, for this particular comet—and all of us have been pretty excited by the chase.

We have one more week in Maine, shooting first on Monhegan Island, then moving to Acadia National Park. But before moving on, we wanted to share some tips about photographing the comet, so you can get outdoors too and take advantage of this amazing night-sky event.

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Comet NEOWISE over the Monhegan Island Lighthouse keeper’s quarters, Maine. © 2020 Chris Nicholson. Nikon D5 with a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens, illuminated by the lighthouse and a Luxli Viola. 25 seconds, f/3.5, ISO 6400.

Finding NEOWISE

First you need to know where in the sky to look for the comet, and when to look there. Fortunately both are pretty easy.

When the comet was first appearing earlier this month, it was doing so in early, early morning—but now (thank goodness) it’s showing up at nautical twilight and hanging around for a few hours before dipping below the horizon. This schedule is much easier for most people to work with.

Where is the comet hanging around? In the north-northwest sky, below the Big Dipper. (See Figure 1. This is for the Northern Hemisphere. Unfortunately our night photography friends south of the equator don’t get to share this show.)

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Figure 1. A rough projection of where in the sky to find Comet NEOWISE this coming week. In general, starting at dusk, look north-northwest, below the Big Dipper. The comet will appear to rotate with the rest of the sky, and will set below the horizon a few hours after first appearing.

Each night the comet will appear slightly more west, as well as slightly higher from the horizon (thereby lasting a little longer before setting). As the evening hours progress, NEOWISE will appear to move toward the horizon with the stars and constellations, eventually setting out of view. Assuming clear skies, you’ll have lots of time to experiment with different strategies and compositions.

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Figure 2. If you’d like help finding the comet in the field, try the Sky Guide app (for iOS and Android), which will pinpoint the comet.

How long will the comet be visible? Astronomers are hypothesizing that we’ll be able to see it until about the end of July. But precision is hard to come by. The good news this week is that the comet is traveling closer to Earth, which should make it larger in the sky; the bad news is that it’s traveling further from the sun, which should mean it won’t be as bright. At some point NEOWISE will cross a threshold where those variables make it even less visible, and then invisible.

Either way, the rest of this week should be the prime opportunity for photography. The comet will be detectable at reasonable hours during very dark skies (i.e., with a new moon). After that, as the comet fades from view, the moon will be growing larger and setting later, eventually obscuring the final acts of the NEOWISE show.

Photographing NEOWISE

As mentioned, we’ve been photographing NEOWISE for a week, so we have some tips we can offer. We hope these will help as you get out this week to capture the comet.

Sharpness

To keep the comet sharp with a long exposure, you’ll want to approach shutter speed the same way as when trying to keep stars or the Milky Way sharp: Use either the 400 Rule, or for more precision, the NPF Rule. In other words, if your stars are sharp, then your comet will be too.

Of course, the comet is by nature a fuzzy-looking thing, so you can get away with a longer shutter speed—perhaps even twice as long as you’d use for a standard sharp-star shot. For example, if a camera/lens combo would allow for a 15-second exposure to freeze the stars, you might be able to shoot for 30 seconds and acceptably freeze the comet. However, then the stars in your image would begin to trail (Figure 3). So it’s probably best to keep shooting for sharp stars, and then everything in your frame will be crisp.

Figure 3. Both of these photos were shot with a 200mm lens—one at 2 seconds, which is compliant with the 400 Rule, the other at 15 seconds, which allowed for shooting at a lower ISO. The comet isn’t that much fuzzier in the latter image, but the stars are trailing. In the former image, despite the higher noise, everything is sharp.

(Another tactic could be the opposite philosophy. Why keep the comet sharp? Maybe photograph a comet trail!)

Lens Choice

The lens you choose will depend on your composition, of course, but it will also depend on your priorities.

If you would like the comet to appear larger in your frame, you’ll want to use a longer lens. However, the longer the lens you use, the shorter your exposure will need to be to keep the comet and stars sharp, which means you’ll need more light to make a good image.

Therefore, if you want to use a longer lens, you’ll probably want to shoot during twilight, when there’s more light in the sky to work with. For example, if shooting with a 200mm lens, the 400 Rule dictates a maximum of 2 seconds for the shutter speed before stars and the comet begin to trail. At twilight with an f/2.8 lens you can shoot for 2 seconds at ISO 3200 or 6400, but after twilight you would need an ISO of 64,000. So, yeah, best to save those telephotos for twilight.

Once you’re into astronomical twilight and beyond, stick with shorter lenses. The comet will appear smaller in your frame, but with creativity you can make the image work (Figure 4). Just put the comet somewhere in the scene where it will be noticeable and will complement the composition. In other words, you’re essentially making an environmental portrait of NEOWISE. Most of the good comet photos I’ve seen were made this way.

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Figure 4. Comet NEOWISE over the Pemaquid Point Lighthouse, Maine. © 2020 Lance Keimig. Nikon D750 with a Sigma 24mm f/1.4 Art lens. 13 seconds, f/4, ISO 6400.

Compositing

You could also use both types of lenses to make a composite image. You could shoot a big comet with a long lens earlier in the evening, the foreground and a big sky with a short lens later in the evening, and blend them together in post-production.

This approach is not something I favor either for my artistic process or when looking at others’ artwork—I just don’t like unnatural proportions of natural objects (i.e., a giant moon over a wide-angle alpine landscape). But such a strategy is possible, so it’s prudent to mention here. If you like that style, or you’d like to try that style, the comet is a good subject for it.

Compiling Light

Just like with stars, there are other approaches to keeping the comet sharp, and they involve some way of “stacking” the available light to create a low-noise image in a high-ISO situation. This might allow you to use that longer lens at a lower ISO, or to just get a cleaner final photograph.

1. Stack multiple exposures of the same sky scene using a program such as Starry Landscape Stacker for Mac or Sequator for PC. (See our blog post “Processing Star Point Images … .” This works great for creating crisp, low-noise photos of stars, and works well with a comet too. On the other hand, it means more work both in the field and at the computer.

2. Use a sky-tracking device, such those made by SkyWatcher and Move Shoot Move (Figure 5). These mount to your tripod and slowly rotate the camera to counteract the rotation of the earth, which allows you to shoot the night sky with longer exposures and lower ISOs. This method also requires a little more field work, as well as some extra post-production time if you want to mask in a sharp foreground.

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Figure 5. The Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer (left) and Move Shoot Move Portable Star Tracker (right) are two gear options that allow you to shoot longer exposures of moving stars (and comets).

White Balance

The approach to white balance is not much different than it would be photographing any other night. Just shoot how you normally would for a given environment. Here are a couple of resources from our blog to help you decide:

• “How to Choose the Right White Balance for Night Skies”

• “Making the Move to Manual White Balance”

Mind the Moon

As mentioned previously, the moon is about to crash the comet party. This means two things:

1. In the nights after the Monday new moon, a thin crescent will be low in the sky during twilight, which might sound tempting for including it in a composition with NEOWISE. However, the moon rises in the east, more than 100 compass degrees away from the comet. So you’re not likely to get them in the same frame in a good composition. (Unless you shoot a pano. Hmm.)

2. After a few nights (Friday, where we are), the moon will still be in the sky after astronomical twilight is over. It will be at 20 percent illumination that night, and getting brighter, and setting later, on each successive night. Concurrently, the comet will be traveling further from the sun and from Earth. All of these factors together mean that NEOWISE will grow fainter each night.

Find a Foreground

Shooting a comet certainly has a wow factor—just like shooting the Milky Way, or a meteor shower, or a moon rise, etc. But all of those are better when set in the context of a composition that includes other elements.

So rather than just pointing your camera at the sky, remember to look for an interesting foreground, and set the comet behind it. A good rule of thumb is that if the composition isn’t interesting without the comet, then it won’t be a great photo even with the comet.

Look for a lighthouse, or a building, or a shoreline, or a sea stack, or a train trestle, or a rock formation, or mountain road, or an old barn, etc. Make a good composition with the comet as an important element alongside whatever else, and you’re on your way to artistic greatness.

Wrapping Up

Of course, as always, we would love to see your images of Comet NEOWISE. Share them in the comments section or on our Facebook page. (To view a bunch of great images our workshop alumni and others have already shared, see this post.)

Chris Nicholson is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night, and author of Photographing National Parks (Sidelight Books, 2015). Learn more about national parks as photography destinations, subscribe to Chris' free e-newsletter, and more at www.PhotographingNationalParks.com.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT