Milky Way over Templeton Barn & Corn Crib - July 18 Edition

Equipment Used: Nikon D750, Tamron 24-70 mm f2.8 G2 lense, 2 Nikon SB-700 Speedlights on Vello Wireless Flash triggers, Vanguard Abel Plus 363CT tripod, Lightroom & Photoshop CC

Using the PhotoPills app, I’ve been keeping an eye on the planner section of the app to see when the Milky Way is at its brightest and if sky conditions are clear, I head out with my camera during the wee hours of the night. This has only happened once so far this summer.

I traveled to one of my favorite spots to take night shots and set up my equipment around the old farm buildings in the bean field. The D750 was on the Vanguard tripod with the 24-70mm lense. The lense was wide open with autofocus and VR turned off.  I used an 8 second exposure for the majority of these images while adjusting the ISO. For the sky, ISO 3200-6400 was used while for the building exposures, I went ISO 800-1600.  The speedlights were set on homemade light stands and triggered using Vello’s flash trigger.

Capturing images to create panoramics was much harder in the dark since I couldn’t see exactly what I was capturing but I tried to pick out stars and made sure I overlapped the images to be able to make the pano in Lightroom.

Using LR, I edited the RAW files using presets, graduated filters and adjustment brushes. These changes are done to make the Milky Way pop when it comes to its brightness, contrast and color. I did use some new settings after watching material on YouTube that I liked the look of on these images.

Photoshop was used to finalize the images by first getting rid of unwanted objects using the healing and clone stamp brush such as lightening bug trails, wires and other objects. To get rid of a greenish/yellowish hue in part of the sky I didn’t like, I used the hue/saturation adjustment layer mask and brush tool to accomplish that. To get a nice blended look of the corn crib and barn with the night sky, I merged two images together and changed the layer that had the crib and barn to lighten mode to help blend them. I lucked out on not having to blend one of these images when a truck drove by on the gravel road and natural lit up the crib and barn.

With the summer winding down fast, I have just a couple more chances to get out and capture the Milky Way so hoping the weather will cooperate during those times and I can get out once again.

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