bout this image

I took this on the same two-week wildflower trip in late July and into August of 2009 as a couple others in this gallery were taken. I didn't have this included in my favorites originally, but as much time as I've spent looking at it and my other Milky Way shots from the same trip since, I had to make an addendum. It's a lot different than my other work, and that uniqueness has grabbed my attention.

I had actually tried shooting the Milky Way a couple years prior with my Canon 5D, but barely saw any stars. That camera goes up to ISO 1600 and didn't realize until later that it went up to 3200 by virtue of a menu setting. However, I think I may have only used ISO 800 for fear of image quality going any higher with all the noise that would be introduced. Anyway, a few days prior to leaving on this trip, the 5D replacement, a 5D Mark II, arrived. It goes up to ISO 6400, though expandable to 25600 in its menu. Knowing that Nikon's top-end cameras have done exceptionally well in the noise department at high ISOs in the last two years, I was hoping Canon's current offerings would turn out decently, and I had to give this type of scene a try or two. I was amazed at what I saw on the camera's LCD, and only hoped it would look good on the Web. I wasn't expecting enough quality to be able to print it.

This one was straight out of the camera with only resizing and sharpening applied. It was shot using the Nikon 14-24 f/2.8 lens set to 2.8; 20 seconds; ISO 6400 with the in-camera sharpening set to strong. At these longer exposures, cameras can pick up things the human eye cannot, such as the gasses and hues you see here. At 30 seconds star trails start to form, but still not bad. There is definitely noise, but not as bad as I would've expected. I have tried resizing some of these to 12x18" on the monitor and they look pretty good—a lot cleaner than I would've expected, so that is gravy. I have taken other shots ranging from 15-30 seconds and also using 3200 ISO, which also work well, though I do prefer the extra brightness that 6400 affords.

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