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7. Plains Milky Way
8 months ago
During the month of May, I shot Milky Way timelapse in central South Dakota, when I had the time, and the weather cooperated. The biggest challenge was cloudy nights and the wind. There were very few nights, when I could shoot, that were perfectly clear, and often the wind was blowing 25mph +. That made it hard to get the shots I wanted. I kept most of the shots low to the ground, so the wind wouldn't catch the setup and cause camera shake, or blow it over. I used a Stage Zero Dolly on the dolly shots and a "Milapse" mount on the panning ones.
This was all shot at night. If you see stars and it looks like daylight, it is actually moon light. 20+ second exposures make it look like daylight.
Canon 60D and T2i
Tokina 11-16
Sigma 20mm F1.8
Tamron 17-50
Dynamic Perception Stage Zero Dolly dynamicperception.com
Shot in RAW format, the Milky Way shots were 30 seconds exposure F2.8 or F1.8 with 2 second interval between shots, for 3-4 hours run time. ISO 1600
Ten seconds of the video is about 2 hours 20 minutes in real time.
Simon Wilkinson from thebluemask.com created the soundtrack "Exodus" for the video
More about Exodus on his site. thebluemask.com/blog/2011/06/new-time-lapse-video-featuring-my-music-exodus/
Wired.com article wired.com/wiredscience/2011/06/milky-way-video/
Bad Astronomer article blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/06/03/gorgeous-milky-way-time-lapse/
For licensing contact
dakotalapse.com
Follow
twitter.com/dakotalapse
facebook.com/dakotalapse
This was all shot at night. If you see stars and it looks like daylight, it is actually moon light. 20+ second exposures make it look like daylight.
Canon 60D and T2i
Tokina 11-16
Sigma 20mm F1.8
Tamron 17-50
Dynamic Perception Stage Zero Dolly dynamicperception.com
Shot in RAW format, the Milky Way shots were 30 seconds exposure F2.8 or F1.8 with 2 second interval between shots, for 3-4 hours run time. ISO 1600
Ten seconds of the video is about 2 hours 20 minutes in real time.
Simon Wilkinson from thebluemask.com created the soundtrack "Exodus" for the video
More about Exodus on his site. thebluemask.com/blog/2011/06/new-time-lapse-video-featuring-my-music-exodus/
Wired.com article wired.com/wiredscience/2011/06/milky-way-video/
Bad Astronomer article blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/06/03/gorgeous-milky-way-time-lapse/
For licensing contact
dakotalapse.com
Follow
twitter.com/dakotalapse
facebook.com/dakotalapse
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Randy HalversonPhotographer/Editor -
Dynamic PerceptionTimelapse Dolly -
Simon WilkinsonMusic
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Keep up the great work!
(p.s. I have actually done this.. girls tend to fall asleep in the car once they get sick of the mosquitoes)
You squeeze out a lot of information from the small 60D and the T2i!. You seem to have a very good sky and low LP. With a 5D MKII you would get really dangerous results.
I have one note though. On most shots you have highly blown and huge stars. I guess this might be due to the lens used or too aggressive post treatment. There are some exceptions though - for example the shot at 02:14 is much better than other shots in terms of stars - they are pinpoint sharp and quite small. Generally it is common mistake in astrophotography post processing, but I guess it applies also to timelapse, that if you don't process carefully, the stars look fat and flat.
From the lenses you are using I know only Sigma 20mm and have to say that I am really disappointed by its quality. It is fully unusable when wide open. Even on 2.8 is not really good for shooting stars.
I have been using a Samyang 14mm and have to say it is a very good lens for this kind of work. It is very sharp and not expensive.
The Samyang 8 on contrary is very bad - has awful coma and astigmatism and it makes it unusable for starry shots.
I have also been using a Nikon 14-24mm F2.8G lens - it is much more expensive, but it is the greatest wide andle I have worked with and you see the difference in quality at a glance.
From the other lenses that I know are good for this kind of work, the Canon 16-35mm F2.8 L II is also good, somewhere between the Samyang 14 and the Nikon.
The new Canon's 24mm 1.4 is also great - at least that's what I have heard. But I haven't used it at all.
@ Patrick, looks like maybe a combination of really long exposures smearing the stars and post that is causing the "fat and flat" look. I have experienced this as well. The 2:14 shot is obviously a shorter exposure and little exposure pushing was needed. Therefore the stars in that shot have more character (for lack of a better word).
However, looking at the number of views that Randy has so far on this video, I think this only bothers timelapse nuts like you and I.
With a full frame camera and a 24mm f1.4 in low light pollution I am able to get a good Milky Way exposure like Randy's at about 20-25 seconds with little luminance editing. This makes for a Milky Way with much more natural looking stars. Once again though, I think most people aren't bothered by unnatural if it looks cool.
What I mean by natural looking is keeping the shape and character of each star as close to what it looked like in real life. It is very hard to do and still create a stunning image. Most of the stars in this awesome video are larger than normal and appear as only bright white. Normal looking stars have many different colors. I'm not sure how to fix the color issue. The size issue is fixed with having a faster camera/lens and changing your dolly movements from shoot-move-shoot to continuous (or vice versa).
I don't think changing the dolly movement would change anything with the stars. If you have a DP dolly, interleaved is the best way to use it, with the MX2 firing the shutter. On pulse it can get stuck sometimes on vertical moves, it won't happen on interleaved.
it changed the meaning of "starstruck"
im in awe all the time thinking about what's out there... thanks for reminding us what electricity has stolen from darkness...these amazing gifts!
the shot going under the wire is brilliant and the shots around 2:18 very good.
iso at 1600? that seems a bit too hi to get the best results
BTW... I recently had the same problems you had regarding wind and night shots (shaking)... I haven't figured out a way to fix in post... but, I did have a similar problem about a shoot a did a few weeks ago and was able to fix it after pulling my hair out for days... it took a combination of deflicker and bcc denoise...don't know if it will work with my more resent shoot with extremely high winds (a byproduct of shooting storms forming at sunset).
Great video though. I had to watch it twice I forgot to put HD on!
I really like the way you included the foreground subjects into this. Many of this type of time lapse dont do that. But I reckon yours is extra special because you done it that way.
Well done - Excellent!
btw.very very nice work