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What Hasselblad Lens for the Milky Way?
- Thread starter dave.gt
- Start date
Hi Dave! For your H5D-50c, I’d suggest the HCD 28mm. It’s not as wide as the HCD 24mm, but it’s faster at f4 vs f4.8 for the 24mm and will let it more [star]light. Where will you be shooting and what kind of image are you looking to get?The H5D is going to need a rental lens to do a Milky Way shoot. What lens do you folks recommend?
An accompanying image of the Milky Way would be wonderful! Thank you in advance!
-Todd
Here’s one with the X1D and 30mm. F3.5, ISO 6400, 30 secs. Taken from St. Simons island looking towards Jekyll island. The light pollution on the left is from the St. Simons Pier, in the right half is Jekyll Island. Taken around 3:30am. You should be able to get some something similar (depending on environmental conditions, light pollution nearby, and Milky Way positioning) with the H5D and 28mm. I use the iOS app Sky Guide to plan my shots.
dave.gt
Well-known member
Ah, good evening, Todd! You ask the very questions I was about to ask you! Never thought about a MW shoot before but if you are up for one, I am too.
Stan is always ready as you know.
From what I understand so far, around Atlanta, probably the Callaway Garden area. No idea what month is best but there are other possibilities! I don't mind an overnight trip if necessary.
What do you think? I am new to this, and I don't mind waiting until the best time of year.
Stan is always ready as you know.
From what I understand so far, around Atlanta, probably the Callaway Garden area. No idea what month is best but there are other possibilities! I don't mind an overnight trip if necessary.
What do you think? I am new to this, and I don't mind waiting until the best time of year.
dave.gt
Well-known member
That is nicely composed image!
The city lights can be an added benefit for composition. On the search for truly dark places... I went here
http://darksitefinder.com/maps/world.html
and I am stunned to see how difficult it is to find truly dark areas in the southeast. Along the coastal areas, it seems that there are opportunities for sufficient darkness.
This will take some more research!:bugeyes:
Bill Caulfeild-Browne
Well-known member
The Bruce Peninsula where I live (45.15N, 81.40W) is an official Dark Skies area, but it's much too cloudy currently! The darkest Dark Sky preserve in southern Canada, I believe, is Grasslands National Park in Saskatchewan, along the Montana border.
Just FYI!
Just FYI!
dave.gt
Well-known member
Thanks, Bill! It is amazing how few people actually see the beauty of the night sky, myself included, being in the sprawling megalopolis of Atlanta. I long for another dark skies visit. It has been far too long!
DougDolde
Well-known member
I live in Joshua Tree. Took a friend out in the park in an August day with no moon.. Of course my IQ180 was worthless in this situation but she had a Canon 5D Mk II and got some shots.
What amazed me is how visible the MW is to the naked eye, at least where the sky is pretty dark. Marvelous
just to watch. Went to where else but these fab locations, one per night: Arch Rock in the White Tank campground, the Cholla Garden and an iconic location in the Jumbo Rocks campground as shown. This image taken there years ago with Aptus 75S. I call it "Humility"
What amazed me is how visible the MW is to the naked eye, at least where the sky is pretty dark. Marvelous
just to watch. Went to where else but these fab locations, one per night: Arch Rock in the White Tank campground, the Cholla Garden and an iconic location in the Jumbo Rocks campground as shown. This image taken there years ago with Aptus 75S. I call it "Humility"
Ed Hurst
Well-known member
Not directly relevant to the question being asked about Hasselblad lenses (as I use a Pentax 645Z), but attaching these shots as examples in case they throw up any discussions relevant to the taking of such shots on medium format.
These were all shot with 645Z plus 25mm f4 DA lens.
[/url]_IMG3761Step4SSsRGBSMALL by Ed Hurst, on Flickr[/IMG]
[/url]Milky Way rising over Palm Beach and Barrenjoey Head by Ed Hurst, on Flickr[/IMG]
[/url]Australia Telescope Compact Array by Ed Hurst, on Flickr[/IMG]
[/url]PanoFromFilesIMGP5115-21And5368-73V7Step10FlatsRGBSMALL-L by Ed Hurst, on Flickr[/IMG]
[/url]IMGP9607Step7SSsRGBSMALL-L by Ed Hurst, on Flickr[/IMG]
[/url]Narrabri 2 by Ed Hurst, on Flickr[/IMG]
[/url]Narrabri 3 by Ed Hurst, on Flickr[/IMG]
These were all shot with 645Z plus 25mm f4 DA lens.
I am always up for a Milky Way shoot. It's one of my favorite subjects. I'd have to do some research in terms of month/location. One of the tricky things about shooting the Milky Way in the SE United States is, from my experience, that the months with best visibility of the core also are the ones with highest humidity and haze in the atmosphere...which greatly compounds the light pollution problem.Ah, good evening, Todd! You ask the very questions I was about to ask you! Never thought about a MW shoot before but if you are up for one, I am too.
Stan is always ready as you know.
From what I understand so far, around Atlanta, probably the Callaway Garden area. No idea what month is best but there are other possibilities! I don't mind an overnight trip if necessary.
What do you think? I am new to this, and I don't mind waiting until the best time of year.
The most success I've had with shooting the Milky Way in Georgia is a result of what we call in the scientific world "serendipity", otherwise known as dumb luck. The backstory for the shot above is that my wife double booked us on Memorial Day weekend. We were supposed to do an engagement shoot in Woodstock the friday evening of Memorial Day, when we were supposed to be on St. Simons with my family. What happened was we did the shoot, then embarked on the 6 hour drive, and arrived at St. Simons around 3 am. There had happened to be a storm system that went through the previous 3-4 days which made for unusually clear skies, there was no moon above the horizon, and the Milky Way core happened to be in a good position. I stepped out of the car, looked up, went "holy s***" (I had assumed from being there many many times before that light pollution made it impossible to see the Milky Way from St. Simons), said "hey honey, come here and look at this", grabbed the camera, and the rest is history. As Doug mentioned, it really is amazing how visible the MW is with the right conditions. My wife had never seen it, and we had a great time taking pics and stargazing. I forgot my tripod, so I did the best I could shooting with the camera in a very precarious situation, and came out with some usable images. Had all of those variables not lined up the way they did, we wouldn't have seen it, because I wouldn't have been out at 3am looking for the MW in a place I assumed it wasn't visible.
Obviously "dark sky" conditions are the best, and the best MW shooting/stargazing I've ever done to date was in the northern patagonia region of Chile. Holy cow were those dark skies. You don't need dark sky conditions to shoot the Milky Way though, and in Georgia, I've also shot it in the north around Dillard/Clayton and Dahlonega. Is it great visibility? No, but it's there, and Dahlonega is only about an hour/hour and a half from Atlanta. Dillard/Clayton is only about 2 hours. The darkest skies in Georgia are at the Stephen C. Foster state park in the Okeefenokee (sp?) Swamp. It is the only spot in Georgia designated as an official dark sky location. I remember when I was a child my boy scout troop camped there one weekend and being amazed at the stars. I'm hoping to go back at some point, just haven't worked out the logistics of it. Being a swamp, summer definitely is not the time I want to go haha.
Ed, your images are wonderful and I always enjoy seeing your posts! You've definitely shown that astro shots are possible on MF CMOS systems. I also love that you've got the magellenic clouds in some of your shots. Those are night sky features that aren't readily visible for us up here in the northern hemisphere. I was happy to see that the X1D is also suitable. I may pick up a star tracker at some point to get better pin-point stars, and can't wait for Hasselblad to come out with the 21mm XCD.
Bill, thanks for the info in Canada! I did a road trip once from Vancouver to Lake Louise and remember seeing all sorts of starts along the way. No shooting sadly
Hoping to make it back up to your lovely country some day!psalm19pix
New member
Hi tcdeveau
How is the electronic viewfinder and/or the live view at night when shooting the milky way? With other cameras like the Nikon Z6 I only see static when I look through the viewfinder for a notht shot of the milky way, and the D850 live view does the same. Is this an issue with the Hasselblad x1d?