Astro Timelapses with OM System
Milkyway and Meteor at dusk, West Virginia
Occasionally I get to spend a few nights away from all the city lights. I like to squeeze in an astro photography session when I can. I’ve been going to a camp out in West Virginia which usually coincides with the Perseids meteor shower. These trips have provided some of my favorite night photography sessions. Being out under the stars watching for meteors and playing with cameras is a great way to kick off a big week at camp.
The tradition began with a sublime experience in 2024 where the Perseids and a strong aurora combined for a fantastic view. Ever since then I’ve been highly motivated to try out new techniques.
Combined shot including four meteors, the Milky Way, and the aurora on August 20, 2024, West Virginia. Shot on a Canon EOS M6 Mark ii with Sigma 16mm f/1.4.
This year I decided to attempt a “holy grail” timelapse, which captures the transition from day to night including both a (hopefully spectacular) sunset and the milky way. Many of the “holy grail” guides have you staying near the camera watching and manually adjusting exposure especially during the dusk and twilight transition. While this may get the best results, it was incompatible with the camp schedule. I decided to try shooting it using a combination of max ISO and minimum shutter speed settings. Nothing ventured nothing gained!
This was the basic plan:
Initial plan
Leave my OM-1 mark 2 with a 7-14mm f/2.8 lens on a tripod late afternoon
Set it up with a delayed timelapse scheduled to start one hour before sunset (sunset was about 8:30, started timelapse at 7:40)
Set metering mode to Spot/Hi in the sky, near the brightest spot expected during sunset
Use P mode with Auto-ISO set to 6400 max ISO and 8 seconds max shutter
Raw only / no timelapse video (to preserve battery)
Use HLD-10 grip for twice the battery life, maybe going as long as 6 hours. (I had experimented with usb-c power through a battery pack, but neither my Nitecore NB10000 nor my Biolite Charge 20 provided enough power for the OM-1. You need 9v/3a, but I was seeing an error saying something about only getting 9v/2a. Thus my battery grip was the best I could do for a long shot without buying yet another power bank.)
I choose P mode instead of Aperture priority because I like the idea of more depth of field during the day, and less in the dark (where foreground is mostly silhouette).
I was able to slip away during some free time during the arrival window to set up a shot. I had no idea how the f/2.8 lens would work (usually I use a faster prime for stars). And I had no idea how this auto-exposure in P mode with Spot/Hi would work.
I found a nice composition not far from camp, was thankful for the 7mm zoom (though I see I could have checked the edges more carefully for stray branches). It felt odd leaving the camera unattended so close to the edge of a cliff. I found a makeshift way of somewhat anchoring it to a pack stuffed in a crack. Next time I should bring some light cord to give more flexibility tethering it.
Image without noise reduction, ISO 6400
How it went
I returned to pick up the camera the next morning. It was unperturbed, no issues with animals or wind. The battery was out (of course). I just had to wait for fresh batteries and free time to look over the results.
The timelapse kicked off at 7:40 right on schedule.
Exposure started at f/5.0, 1/100, ISO 200
P mode dropped both shutter and aperture together
f/4.0, 1/60, ISO 200 @ 8:15pm
f/2.8, 1/30, ISO 200 @ 8:23pm
f/2.8, 1 sec, ISO 200 @ 8:45pm
f/2.8, 8 sec, ISO 200 @ 8:54pm
f/2.8, 8 sec, ISO 6400 @ 9:12pm (I expected it to stop here, but it kept increasing shutter)
f/2.8, 20 sec, ISO 6400 @ 9:18pm
f/2.8, 30 sec, ISO 6400 @ 9:27pm
f/2.8, 40 sec, ISO 6400 @ 10pm
f/2.8, 50 sec, ISO 6400 @ 11:12pm
The sunset wasn’t spectacular. It was a little hazy, there was just a little color on the horizon.
The first stars started to be visible around 9:06
The milky way started to be visible around 9:27 (about an hour after sunset)
Timelapse went until 11:20, about 3.5 hours
Turns out I had the extra battery grip but it was empty! I forgot to put a battery in the grip after doing a final battery charge-up to prepare for the trip. I need to add that to the check list. I could have had twice as much Milky Way footage.
7:42pm - 1/100, f/5, ISO 200
10:53pm - 40 sec, f/2.8, ISO 6400
Lessons Learned
Don’t use Spot/Hi mode. In that mode, the maximum shutter doesn’t seem to be respected. In other modes (not highlight/shadow preserving), it seems to respect the max shutter.
Make sure the grip has a battery!
Make sure your camera clock is correct (learned this during some practice runs). Make sure daylight savings time is correct if you plan to rely on the camera’s clock for calculating timelapse delay.
Processing
I processed the timelapse using free version of LR timelapse. I had more than 400 frames, so had to abandon some. I struggled with flicker in the end result. Some haze and clouds blew through the scene, and a distant floodlight also changed foreground illumination some.
Eventually I think I got it under control doing these two things:
I set a reference area in the foreground (excluding areas of cloud transit)
I re-processed the keyframes to use mostly tone curve and avoid dehaze, clarity, and blacks/whites.
I learned these edits can introduce variation between frames and cause flicker
I also learned AI denoise and other AI driven features don’t work with LR timelapse. Thus processing the keyframes in Lightroom isn’t quite like normal photo processing. It’s more like a heavily restricted editing workflow using the basic tools I used in Aperture a decade ago.