In Seach of the Milky Way - From Dusk 'Til Dawn in the Allgäu

At the end of May I scouted a possible location for an astro shoot in the Allgäu mountains come next new moon. A good milky way photos lives and dies by the foreground and I wanted somewhere with a good view over the alps. The middle of June arrived and the forecast for Friday and Saturday was awful; clouds, rain, the lot. Nothing doing. The next weather window was going to be Tuesday night. To make matters worse, the initiator of the whole idea - my friend Matthias - couldn't make it as he was stuck up at work in northern Bavaria. But an old school friend who happens to live in Munich was interested enough to bite when I announced my intentions on Facebook and so Martin and I ended up heading down to Fischen im Allgäu early Tuesday evening to see what we could see. Meteorologically we were on a rising tide - there were still some clouds around but the weather was definitely clearing from the north and so we were optimistic.

The Shoot

Waiting For The Moon To Set || Huawei P30 Pro

Dusk

Driving down there were still cloud remnants lurking in all the wrong places, but the northerly wind was driving them deeper into the alps and so we weren't too concerned. We set off from the car-park in the early evening light. Normally, like most people, I spend most of my time in the mountains during the day. Unless I'm staying in one of the mountain huts, I'm generally back down in the valley for dinner. This evening's experience may get me to revisit that schedule. There's a good reason why landscape photographers choose to shoot at the ends of the day; the light quality is very different. It's softer, gentler and less blue. Watching the pastel colours changing on the Vorarlberg mountains in the gathering dusk made me start rethinking how I plan my days in the Alps.

As the Sun Goes Down || Olympus f/7.1, 1/80 s, ISO 200

It was great to see that not all of the snow had disappeared in the intervening weeks; I find the last snowfields really make a photo like this and I don't shy back from exaggerating them in post-processing like  here (above).

The Pastel Colours of Evening || Olympus f/7.1, 1/160 s, ISO 200

All the Layers || Olympus f/7.1, 1/30 s, ISO 200

Moonset

I'd promised my school chum a relatively easy hike up to the first mountain top that I'd identified. Unfortunately we didn't make it all the way and ended up about 100 m below the summit on a slight shoulder. The location was optimal for the first spectacle of the evening - the fresh new moon was due to set behind the peak above us and our location appeared to be optimal for that. My smartphone app (Sky View) was showing me where the moon should be in the sky, but for the life of me I couldn't find it. I was beginning to fret that either (a) the app was playing up, or (b) there wasn't going to be enough moon to see. As the sky darkened and I still couldn't see it Martin spotted it - why we hadn't seen it before was a complete mystery as it was so clear at this point.

Well It's Obvious Now! || Olympus f/8, 1/5 s, ISO 200

Setting Moon || Olympus 100 mm f/5.6, 0.6 s, ISO 400

Before we turned our attention to the stars that were beginning to appear in twos and threes there was one more dusk photo to grab before the technical stuff began:

When Purple Comes Out To Play || Olympus f/5.6, 40 s, ISO 200

As fun as it was to shoot the setting moon, it cost me my first milky way shots as I wasn't set up to get a good foreground photo during the blue hour that I could use to blend into the final image in post. The shot I ended up getting was ok, probably one of my better photos of the Milky Way per se, but the foreground is lacklustre. I don't know whether it would have been any better 100 m higher up either, but the lesson is that you need to be in position early, you need to get your foreground shots in in good time and you can only recon on about two good astro shots per night, one after the sun goes down and one before it rises, unless you're shooting with multiple cameras.

Collision Imminent || Olympus 300 mm f/5.6, 0.6 s, ISO 1600, Composite Image

Milky Way

The challenge with astrophography is the low light levels. You need an open aperture and relatively high ISO with a wide angle lens to get enough light to the sensor before the earth's rotation turns the star points into lines - the so-called star trails. As a rule of thumb, the maximum exposure time before this happens is 500/focal length* (400 if you're being conservative). So for my 16 mm equivalent wide angle lens, I can shoot for 25 s. In order to further increase light-sensitivity, we need to increase the ISO. Small sensor cameras (I shoot with an Olympus micro four-thirds crop sensor, technically a small sensor camera) are notorious for being sensitive to high ISO, the images tend to have a lot of unsightly noise - a random phenomenon that causes an unsightly buzz in the image. But being random, there's a solution: If you take multiple shots and then take the average of those shots, the noise is diminished. The challenge is that the software performing the calculations needs to take into account the fact that the stars are moving - if it didn't you'd end up with the trails again. All in all quite a technical feat, especially when there's a foreground involved. Fortunately the free Windows software Sequator can do all of this - it's what it was written for. It's not the most user-friendly app, but if you know what you're doing (or in my case if you know someone who knows what they're doing), it's extremely powerful. The trick seems to be not using too many of the features, but more of that below.

*25 mm equivalent, so with my micro four-thirds sensor I need to double my focal length

First Starlight - Stacked but Unprocessed || Olympus 8 mm, f/2.8, 25 s, ISO 6400, Stacked

We could just about make out the trail of the Milky Way in the Allgäu sky. From our vantage point I tried several series of shots, with and without my Haida Clear Light filter and Tiffen Fog filter and with the new 7Artisans 7.5 mm fish-eye. In the end I liked the unfiltered images through the Panasonic Leica 8-18 mm the best. The above image is stacked to reduce noise but otherwise unprocessed. The sheer clarity of the image just blows me away. The detail in the Milky Way is amazing. But I don't think this is a good Milky Way photo. It's a good photo of the Milky Way, but like I said earlier, a good Milky Way photo stands or falls by the foreground and I wasn't satisfied with what I was getting here, so after a cup of tea  and a pasty (thanks Martin, those were life-savers) I lay down for a 45 min shut-eye before heading up to the ridge, where I knew just the spot.

With Haido Clear Sky Filter, Unprocessed

7Artisans 7.5 mm Fish-eye Lens, Unprocessed

One of the greatest challenges with astro photography is finding infinity on the focus dial. Looking through the viewfinder you're confronted with an almost completely black image - finding something to focus on can be extremely difficult. If there's a bright light a couple of miles off this works relatively well, as at this distance there's effectively no focal change between 2 miles and infinity. It was quite a challenge in the dark though, and I had to hunt through the magnified viewfinder on the Olympus to locate Jupiter (bright spot in the middle of the images above) and twiddle the focus ring of the lens to render the tiny fuzzy light as tight and small as possible. Then it's shoot and hope. You can examine the images on the camera display, but you're never entirely sure whether your photo is sharp or not until you get the image on the computer screen.

Despite being pitch dark, it was easy enough to find my way by the light of my head-torch, having scouted the area less than a month before. I located the second spot relatively easily and set up the tripod again. A few ultra-high-ISO shots helped me frame the photo correctly. I also tried some low ISO long exposures with a bit of light painting so that I would have a foreground to go with it. This is a separate image that is blended with the processed astro image in post processing (see last image). This final photo here has to be my favourite image of the year so far. I didn't get a huge number of finished shots that I was happy with, but at the end of the day, if you come away with at least one, that's a win.

Milky Way Over The Allgäu || Olympus 8 mm, f/2.8, 25 s ISO 6400, Stacked

I carried on shooting for a while after this into the blue light of pre-dawn before giving up and catching a few more minutes sleep lent against my rucksack. It was a mild night with little wind and the ground was comfortable and dry beneath me, not a sound to be heard.

Birdsong and a yipping fox in the valley below alerted me to the coming dawn. By the light of the red band of cloud to the east I could just make out a small peat pond nearby that I'd just avoided in the dark. In retrospect I should have taken a lower vantage point for this shot. This is two images blended in ON1 Photo Raw, one for the sky, one for the foreground. I took the liberty of brightening the tufts of cotton grass to emphasise them in the pre-dawn light.

Mountain Tarn at Dawn || Olympus f/5.6, 1/6 s, ISO 200

Then it was down to find Martin and head down to the car. I found him warming himself over his camping stove and ready to return to the valley. As I waited for him to pack his things there was time for one last shot of the sun rising on the mountain escarpment opposite us. 

The Red Light Of Dawn || Olympus f/5.6, 1/30 s, ISO 200

Processing the Images

If you're not interested in the nitty-gritty of processing astro photography you can probably stop reading here and scan to the last images. It's very easy to over-process Milky Way photos: I spent two evenings working on this last shot only to have Sharon (correctly) tell me that it was too speckled and she didn't like the foreground. I've left this technical bit to the end for my techie friends who'll be interested in this stuff (hi Matthias!). 

Before the images can be 'stacked' (averaged), they need to be in tiff format. ON1 Photo Raw, my post-processing software can export tiffs, but they're the wrong format for my stacking software, Sequator. The images have to be opened in Olympus Workspace and exported as tiffs from there. For each image I used 10 star images and two control images with the lens cap on (lights and darks respectively).

Crop of main image

Unprocessed image OOC	Stacked in Sequator 10 Star images, 2 Noise images (with lens cap on), Align stars, Freeze ground, Sky region: Partial, otherwise all default settings	Processed in ON1 Photo Raw 2020 Develop: Contrast +24, Highlights +18, Midtones +15, Shadows -20, Whites +45, Temperature +40, Tint -3 Effects: Sharpening, Noise Reduction (Moderate), Tone Enhancer (Shadows Lighter on foreground; Midtone Contrast Boost, 50%), LUTs (1983, 35%), Sunshine (Sunglow, 50%), Curves (mild S-curve), Dynamic contrast on Milky Way

I also tried a blend of my favourite image with the light-painted foreground in ON1 Photo Raw. It's not perfect as I seem to have adjusted the camera between frames and had to stretch the resulting images to fit. I'd be interested to hear which image you prefer, this one with more detail in the foreground trees, or the original "Milky Way Over The Allgäu" above. My jury is still out on this one.

Milky Way Over The Allgäu II || Olympus 8 mm, f/2.8, 25 s ISO 6400, Stacked and Blended

I Can Slow Down Time, What's Your Superpower?

A while back I talked about some differences between our eyes and cameras, focusing primarily on things that our eyes can do but our cameras can't (When What You See Is Not What You Get). But there are also some things that our cameras can do that our eyes can't. One of these is slowing down time. Well, actually it's accumulating time. Ok, it's not accumulating time, it's accumulating light over a longer period of time, but you get the idea. Sometimes a slow shutter speed can be a real hindrance, such as when we're trying to take a photo of something that's moving quickly, or we're using a telephoto lens (or both - photographing birds in flight, for example). But sometimes, just sometimes, it can give rise to really cool effects to emphasise movement.

Between a Rock and a Soft Space || Olympus f/20, 5 s, ISO 200

Probably the most common use of this effect is emphasising movement in water, either in waves or in a waterfall. Take a high-speed photo of a waterfall and you'll freeze the motion, giving you a glassy image (which can also be appealing).

Glassy Water || Olympus f/4, 1/800 s, ISO 1600

Slow things down to a fraction of a second and you'll get a real sense of movement in the scene. Even 1/5 s is enough to really convey what's going on such as with this waterfall above Saas Fee in Switzerland. I love the contrast between the rocks and the water in shots like this - solidity and motion. 

In the Swiss Alps || Olympus F/22, 1/6 s, ISO 100

You can easily apply the same principle to waves on the sea, such as in this Boxing Day photo taken in Lyme Regis on the English south coast. My portfolio of seascapes is very limited, but this one taken in the later afternoon light works for me. The wave crashing into the sea wall is clearly in motion, as is the foam soaking back through the pebbles towards the sea.

Waves at Lyme Regis || Olympus f/22, 1/2 s, ISO 80

If you want to go full-on motion blur, giving you that creamy, foggy appearance in the water you'll need to further increase the exposure time to multiple seconds.

At the Stuiben Falls || Olympus, f/22, 5 s, ISO 64

But how do you take an otherwise sharp multi-second photo? There are essentially two challenges; (I) reducing the amount of light entering the camera to a sufficient level to allow a long exposure in the first place, and (II) stabilising the camera so that the rest of the picture isn't blurred.

Reducing the Light

Why do we need to reduce the amount of light entering the camera, and how do we achieve this?

Why Do We Reduce Light? There are two physical limits in our cameras to the amount of light being registered by the sensor; the size of the aperture (the F-stop) and the sensitivity of the sensor (ISO). Most lenses are restricted to a minimum (smallest) aperture of about F/22 and most cameras to a minimum ISO of somewhere between 50-100. On a bright sunny day, even F/22 and ISO 50 aren't sufficient to achieve an exposure time close to 1 s. The image will be completely over-exposed - simply put too much light has entered the camera, plus there are good reasons not to push either the aperture or the ISO this far; at F/22 most lenses exhibit sharpness-limiting levels of diffraction and at low ISO the camera sensor's ability to distinguish between the brightest and darkest aspects of a scene (the dynamic range) is slightly diminished. So in order to get a decent image, we need to reduce the amount of light hitting the sensor.

Photography 101: Include a Pretty Girl in a Yellow Coat || Olympus f/4, 1/5 s, ISO 200

How Do We Reduce Light? Essentially there's only one way to do this; sticking a piece of darkened glass in front of the camera lens There is another way, but that goes beyond the scope of this article. Most of us are familiar with polarising filters for cameras and these certainly help to reduce the light in certain circumstances, but are limited to somewhere between 1 and 2 stops. What's a stop of light?, I hear you ask. A stop in camera-speak is a doubling (or halving) of the exposure. So a polarising filter will generally allow you to double or quadruple the exposure time, say from 1/10 s to 1/5 s - which really isn't much at all. You'd hardly see the difference between the two.

The next easiest option is a variable neutral density (ND) filter. Have you ever tilted your head whilst wearing polarised sunglasses and seen a screen go dark? That's probably because the screen you're looking at is also polarised. As long as both polarised layers are aligned, no effect is visible, but as soon as the two layers become misaligned, a decreasing amount of light passes through both layers. This is how variable ND filters work. They have two polarised layers that can be turned independently meaning that you can control how dark the filter is. Although convenient, there are downsides to using variable ND filters. If you were to take a photo of a perfectly uniform surface through one of these filters, the resulting image would in all likelihood look quite blotchy because the filter effect is normally uneven. You wouldn't want to use this filter to shoot blue sky, for example. But it can work for irregular images such as waterfalls.

Beyond that you're looking at fixed ND filters, darkened glass that reduce the amount of light without affecting the colour of the light. These can either be attached directly to the lens via a screw thread or using a special filter attachment system. The darkest commonly available ND filter, generally referred to as the Super Stopper, reduces light by 15 stops 😲.

Such filters can even tame wavy lakes to add a sense of calm to what would otherwise have been a very unsettled image. On this windy late November morning at the Hopfensee there were a lot of waves and they would have detracted from the sense of peace I was hoping for with this image.

Dawn at the Hopfensee || Olympus f/11, 8 s, ISO 64

Stabilising the Camera

The rule of thumb is that the maximum length of time the average person can hold a camera before camera shake renders the picture unacceptably blurry is 1/focal length in mm. Sounds technical, but the focal length is essentially the amount of zoom you're using. Assuming that the standard lens has a focal length of 50 mm (commonly referred to as "a 50 mm lens"), then the accepted maximal exposure is 1/50 s. If you're using a wider-angle lens, such as a 20 mm lens then that time decreases to 1/20 s. If you're using a 300 mm telephoto, then the maximal exposure is around 1/300 s, quite fast and much too quick to smooth out any desired motion blur.

There are two ways to achieve stabilisation; either in-camera image stabilisation (whether camera body or lens) or camera immobilisation (e.g. a tripod).

Image Stabilisation When I was looking for a new camera at the beginning of 2019, one of the features that caught my eye was the excellent image stabilisation capabilities of the Olympus cameras. My E-M1 Mk II boasts a massive 5.5 stops of image stabilisation, even more in combination with certain lenses. What's a stop of image stabilisation? The same as a stop of light. Going back to the 50 mm lens, we mentioned above, I can double (or is it halve?) the exposure 5½ times from 1/50 s to 1/25→1/12.5→1/6.25→1/3.125→ >1/1.56 s - so about a second. 

Olympus' image stabilisation with the newest generation of cameras - the E-M1X and the E-M1 Mk III  (💗) is rated at 7.5 stops with certain lenses - turning 1/50 s to 3.6 s - practically an eternity in camera terms. This is pretty much getting to the physical limit for in-camera image stabilisation, which I am reliably informed is limited by the earth's rotation! This is all done using a free floating image sensor chip which is held in place using magnets.

Anyway, enough technical details and Olympus fanboy-ism, suffice to say that most modern cameras come with a certain degree of image stabilisation, allowing you to break the 1/focal length rule.

Don't Just Rely on the Effect - Use Composition Rules || Olympus f/6.3, 1 s, ISO 200

Camera Immobilisation The other way to prevent camera blur of course is to immobilise the camera itself. Classically this is done with a tripod, though we don't have to limit ourselves to this option. In an emergency, anything stable will do, a rock, the crook of  a tree, a rucksack or a beanbag. Anything that will prevent your camera from moving. They say that you should always turn your image stabilisation off when using any form of camera immobilisation. Apparently, the camera expects a certain amount of user shake and gets confused when this is absent. In practice, half the time I forget to turn off image stabilisation anyway and I can't say that I've noticed a difference.

For this to work, the surface that your tripod is resting on has to be stable too. There are a couple of gorges near where I live that have metal bridges spanning the river below. These bridges start to swing noticeably as soon as anyone starts walking along them, so sometimes a little patience is required. Just know that you'll seldom be alone at spots like the Hopfensee. Matthias and I ran into a photo workshop later the same day as above. Still, you don't have to include the other photographers in the image.

So that's the basics of camera immobilisation. Choosing the right tripod is also a matter of taste and usually ends up being a compromise between weight, cost and stability. Don't skimp too much though as you will ultimately regret it. I'm currently running two tripods; my main one is a doughty Tiltall TC-254 which is currently sporting a Benro GD3WH geared head. I also have a lighter Rollei Compact Traveller for when I want to cut down on weight.

Later the Same Day || Olympus f/11 8 s, ISO 64

How Much Motion Blur?

How long is a piece of string? Honestly, there's no correct answer to this question, it's purely a matter of taste and depends a lot on whether you want to simply convey a sense of motion, in which case you can get away with exposures of around 1/5 s, or whether you want to give your waterfall that silky fog appearance, in which case you're going to need exposure times of at least a couple of seconds.

Moonshots - Getting the Shot and Post-Processing

Who doesn't want to take cracking images of the moon, our closest celestial object? We've all seen startlingly bright photos of the craters and then perhaps gone out to try to make our own and come back disappointed with black photos containing a bright, blurry smear in the middle. With a little bit of know-how and a decent-length lens it's not too difficult to get images that will stun our friends. There are two important steps: getting the images in the camera and then processing the pictures on the PC. 

Moonrise over the Allgäu || Olympus f/8, 1/1250 s, ISO 200

Some phases of the moon are definitely more photogenic than others. When the sun hits the moon obliquely, like here at just after half moon, the shadows on the craters are longer and stand out more. At full moon the sun is full-on and the shadows shrink. This was one of those 'oh wow' moments that I knew I had to capitalise on. We were sitting outside at a restaurant in the mountains when one of the kids noticed the moon rising over the hillside. I had to dash to the car to grab my telephoto lens and was able to capture this image before the moon became too high above the hillside.

Getting the Images

All the images in this article were taken using my Panasonic Lumix 100-300 mm lens at the long end on my Olympus E-M1 Mk II, a micro four thirds camera, making this equivalent to a 200-600 mm lens in 35 mm terms. Without image stabilisation we need to watch out for the shutter speed / focal length rule (maximum shutter speed = 1/ focal length; for a 500 mm lens, for example, the max shutter speed should be 1/500 s). 

The next challenge is getting the exposure right. Most cameras are set to evaluate the exposure over the whole image, combine this with some intelligent guess-work and provide you with what your camera thinks is a suitably exposed image. So for an image of the moon your camera sees a bright spot - even at 600 mm FF equivalent we're talking about an area that probably takes up less than 5% of the image - against a dark background and will try to provide you with an images that balances the light and dark.

Exposure

So we have to trick the camera or even go to manual. If you know how to adjust your exposure with exposure value (EV) adjustment - experience tells me that setting your camera to -3 EV should give you a decently lit image. Alternatively, you can go manual. The night images were taken at 1/640 s at f/5.6 and ISO 200 on my Olympus. You could try starting from there and adjusting the exposure as needed.

Even though you can hand-hold these shots, there is one significant advantage to sticking your camera on a tripod; aligning your images in post will be much easier.

Focus

Sticking your camera on a tripod also makes focusing your shot easier, and I really would recommend slipping into manual focus for this to be on the safe side. If your camera allows you to magnify around the focus point then use this, in fact use every trick you can to get the image as sharp as you possibly can. Don't leave anything to chance. What you'll notice is that the moon won't stay still on your camera display. Don't worry, your camera isn't slipping on the tripod mount (well, it might be, but not necessarily). What you're seeing is the moon moving in relation to the earth.

Multiple Exposures

Why images and why align them? Because a single image isn't going to give you much of an picture. In fact, you're going to want to grab at least about 50 images. This will give you enough to generate a mean image in post (colloquially and mathematically) reducing noise and sharpening the image. The atmosphere is full of convection currents, particularly in the summer, which will muddy your image.

Processing the Images

Ok, so the fun part is over, now the work begins. First we need to do a little bit of basic editing in your post-processing software of choice. I make no apologies for using a slightly obscure programme for mine; ON1 Photo Raw 2020 instead of Lightroom or Photoshop for the same reason I make no apologies for shooting with an Olympus rather than Canon, Nikon or Sony. They're informed decisions that I made and stand by - I've never been afraid of going down the road less travelled.

Initial Processing

Import your RAW images into your processor of choice and select the images from your series. Most image processing programmes allow you to apply the settings you apply to one photo to a series of photos, so you can hopefully just edit one and cascade to the other images. Crop your image to the final size you want for the image, allowing room around the edges for a final crop. You may want to increase the basic exposure and clarity, but don't over-do it and leave the noise reduction for now, we'll get back to that later.  Apply the crop and adjustments across the whole series and export them all to tiff or jpeg files in a dedicated folder for stacking.

Image Stacking

You will probably have noticed that your photos are a little muddy, a little unclear. That's perfectly allowable; your subject is at least 384,000 km away and you're shooting through 480+ km of air. That air is seldom clean and often full of convection currents, making matters worse. Stacking your images will give you a mathematical mean image, reducing image noise and sharpening the details.

The software I use is a free programme called RegiStax 6 and can be downloaded from the website here. The programme will first align the various images - like I said, the moon will be in a slightly different place each time due to the relative motion of the earth and its satellite. Before the images can be averaged, they need to be lined up. After that, you can select what percentage of the base images you want to use for the averaging before stacking.

Rather than list the specific steps I used and palm them off as my own, I'll point you to the Sarah and Colins Astro YouTube video that I followed verbatim. After aligning the images, there will still not be much difference from the original until you adjust what the programme calls 'wavelets'. Then the magic happens and the crisp image begins to reveal itself. 

I had problems using tiffs; firstly the tiffs I generated from ON1 weren't recognised by RegiStax. The tiffs from Olympus Workspace were recognised, but the resulting image had a lot of digital noise. My best results were from Olympus RAW files exported to jpeg in ON1 Photo Raw. The output from RegiStax can be saved in any of the usual formats, though if you've used jpeg as the starting point for stacking, you possibly won't gain anything by saving the output in any of the information richer formats.

Final Processing

Now it's time for the last polish. Re-open the image in your image processing software. It's likely to have quite a bit of noise in the smoother parts of the image and it's now time to deal with that and any other adjustments you might care to make.

In ON1 I dealt with noise using Luminance 2020 Noise reduction, setting Luminance to 30 and Detail to 5. Your mileage will of course differ. I loose a little bit of detail like this, but it's a sacrifice I'm prepared to make to get rid of the unsightly noise.

Watch the craters at the bottom of the moon as well as the noise in the Sea of Tranquillity (the darker patch towards the top).

Starting Image

After Stacking

After Noise Reduction

Layers

As a last step, you may want to assemble the final image(s) in layers. This will let you plant your final moonshot back in its environment as with my Moonrise over the Allgäu shot at the beginning of this article. I used this process to slightly magnify the moon in this scene to emphasise it. 

What Next?

If you found this tutorial useful, link to your final image(s) below, it would be great to see them. 

If you're still looking for a challenge? Go and take a look at Alyn Wallace's YouTube tutorial on taking gorgeous HDR images of the half moon.

I'll close with two more before and after pics taken later that evening from home to emphasise how much detail can be wrung out of these images. I had to add a gaussian blur to the background on the stacked image due to an ugly moire pattern, but that's trivial.

Later the Same Night: Before || Olympus f/5.6, 1/320 s, ISO 200

Later the Same Night: After || Olympus f/5.6, 1/320 s, ISO 200