Samyang Fisheye Milky Way

[petemcr]

As per the title has anyone had much luck getting any milky way shots using a Samyang 8mm fisheye?

I've got one for filming skating and got it on my 600D, but the optics in it are amazing and get a really wide field of view which would look awesome for a milky way shot, but it's not the fastest lens ever only going as high as f/3.5 and I read that you need something in the f/2.0 range or lower to really get the detail of the milky way.

Anyone got any info or examples taken using this lens? if it's good enough then I might go out up the road where there is no light pollution and give it a try if it does yield good results.

[IanWatkins]

Could be f22 as long as you keep the shutter open long enough

Seriously, it's a great lens, so just go up the road on a clear night and try it. And then show us the results.

Suggest you tripod/sandbag it all, point up and do a few different exposure lengths to get a feel for how long to capture.

Cheers

Ian

[Knight of Clear Skies]

I got this at f3.5 using a kit lens at 18mm (30 second exposure, ISO 800 I believe).

The 8mm should do a bit better, as with the larger field of view it should manage a longer exposure before trailing become apparent.

Putting the camera on a tracking mount would allow much longer exposures, but if that isn't an option for you you can stack images taken from a fixed tripod in Deep Sky Stacker. It automatically compensates for field rotation and you could take some dark frames to reduce the noise. You'd want to choose 'intersection' mode for the stack, which will just give the region present in every frame. If stacking rather than taking a single exposure you don't want any trailing at all in the subs - 30 seconds at 8mm should be fine, but you might be able to push it a bit longer.

Hope that is some help.