Avoid this Milky Way Photography Mistake

The peacefulness felt underneath twinkling star-studded night skies is an almost indescribable experience. When the world is asleep, the magical sky puts on a show. Capturing that beauty in the night sky is exhilarating and well worth the sleepy haze of the next day.

Most often, photography rules will help the photographer capture technically correct images. After a sleepless night, I know that mistakes can be even more disappointing so let me help you avoid this common Milky Way photography mistake. 

Pinpoint stars are a highly sought-after capture when photographing the night sky. The classic rule for achieving pinpoint stars in night landscape photos is the 500 rule. The rule of 500 sets a shutter speed value for capturing pinpoint stars. However, this rule is no longer accurate for many of today's DSLR and mirrorless cameras. 

There's a much more accurate way to determine the best shutter speed for achieving pinpoint stars in a single frame, this is the NPF rule. The NPF rule considers a camera's megapixels when choosing the best shutter speed for achieving pinpoint stars.  

Since math is never my strong suit at 2 am, I use the Spot Stars calculator inside PhotoPills to determine my best shutter speed for barely noticeable star trailing (adequate for average-sized prints) or accurate pinpoint stars (best for large prints) images. 

As you can see below, if I used the classic 500 rule in determining my shutter speed for pinpoint stars, I'd certainly be disappointed with a 36-second exposure. So the better choice in exposure time for my camera will be 15 seconds, but if I know that I'll print at a larger scale, I should use about an 8-second exposure. 

These small details are essential to the success of a landscape image at night. Unfortunately, too long a shutter speed at night can disappoint you when reviewing your pictures. So if your vision for a landscape image at night is a photo-filled with pinpoint stars, don't use the class 500 Rule calculation; instead, use an app like PhotoPills to figure out the NPF calculation for your camera at the focal point length you plan to use. Or try a star tracker; those are awesome too!