mickaeltournier

Lake milky way

SONY ILCE-6000

settings

ISO 3200 Shutter 25/1

upload_date

Aug, 2015

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Behind The Lens

Location

This photo was shot in the French backcountry region named Corrèze near a micro-town called Argentat. It was one of my first milky-way tries with my A6000, I love learning and try to always learn one new tricks when shooting, this clear night sky has taught me that water reflection with long exposure is not as easy as I was thinking!

Time

I remember being with my best friend for the whole night shooting stars and teaching him how to do so, he was just receiving his first camera, a lovely Fuji X-T10, and was willing to catch the milky way. We have spent hours settings up his camera and explaining him how exposition works, we ended up doing experimentation with light to create kind of ghostly images, which he loved so much that it's now his speciality. At some points I let him play by himself and decided to take few milkyway shot, that place was too awesome to only spent time teaching him! I think this photo was taken around 2am, then cloud start coming and we decided to go somewhere else.

Lighting

This has been taken in midle of nowhere, but just at this point we where having a roadside lamp post in our back.. none of them for the last 50km and just here you have one.. The kind of things that can make you very angry about light pollution. We where having several black trash bag with us to not let any waste in nature, after few minutes trying to handle the light and my exposition I decided to climb the roadside lamp post and put the trash bag on it, but eheh climbing is not the hardest parts :) how to go down? My friend was laughing so much that his help was not possible but I finally figured out how to make it to the ground without ending at the hospital. Then the scenary was now lightless and the trees looking as dark as I was willing, it was time to shoot!

Equipment

My equipment was pretty simple, my Sony A6000, my Samyang/Rokinon manual 12mm F2 lens, a very cheap but efficient tripod (Hamma), 2 spare batteries and a simple camera remote. That's all!

Inspiration

My friend know the region very well and I was asking him a place where I can have, milky way, trees, lake/river and link between water and stars. It was a pretty hard wish but in few minutes he told me "Mike, I just got an illumination and know the perfect place for you". Once on place, I remember telling myself that it was the exact idea I had in mind and I was wondering how he can read in my mind J.

Editing

I always do basic Lightroom post-processing steps: curves, white balance correction, etc. But it's very basic post-processing, I refuse myself to go in Photoshop.

In my camera bag

I like to travel light, my normal bag is very empty but enough for what I'm doing. So you can find in my bag: my Sony A6000, my Sony 16-50mm f2.8 basic lens, my Samyang/Rokinon manual 12mm F2 lens, a gorilla tripod if not my Hamma tripod (this thing is crap but still alive after 7 years!!!), 3 spare batteries, my camera remote, 2 lens pens and a soft underwater housing.

Feedback

Take your time and find the right spot! Technically speaking, milky way photography is very easy if you have the correct lens (more than f2, f1.4 is ideal, less than 20mm, 12mm is ideal to avoid big fisheye effect). Now talking settings it really depends of your camera, with the A6000 I found that 1600ISO, 20 or 25sec, WB 3200 and manual focusing is the most efficient. Last but not least, never ever forget to spent time with your camera off and enjoy the quiet wonderful view you're trying to shoot, print it in your brain because the time you figure out that we are so little and nothing compared to the gigantic universe, it will be priceless!

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mickaeltournier

mickaeltournier

Lake milky way

Behind The Lens

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