Am I on the right track for astro photography?

Question

After viewing a few photographs of the Milky Way, I have become obsessed with creating my own. I went out and purchased a new full frame camera with a 24 f1.4 lens.

Am I on the right track with this equipment? I have yet to drive out to the country and find a decent sky, and I am looking for some recommendations on shutter and ISO.

Answer

With a full frame camera and an f/1.4 24mm lens, you should certainly be ready to go. You will need to use a pretty high ISO to get a nicely saturated shot, ISO1600 or so, but with a full-frame camera noise should be pretty low and manageable. You might not want to shot at the widest aperture, as CA will probably interfere with the quality of the stars. I would say f/2 should so, but every shot needs some fine-tuning. With such a wide lens, you should be able to expose for about 25-30 seconds or so before startrails start to affect the shot.

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