Light painting, and photographing stars, and milky way...

Light Painting:

Using light painting, you can get some amazing one-click photos.  Light painting is fun, but shooting at night and painting with light are experiments, so you have to be willing to hang out in the dark a long time.  There are two types of light painting.
  1.  Using a light source to point toward the camera to create words, patterns, and shapes.
         Photos taken from www.iheartfaces.com

You can see this tutorial on how to paint with light by clicking here.

2.  Using a light source to light up an object by moving the light directly over the subject matter.

      

I will be discussing the second method of light painting.  

Equipment:  DSLR, tripod, remote (not necessary but nice), Dark night, object to paint

Settings:  Always use the lowest ISO that will allow a good picture.  When photographing the stars and an object, the ISO will have to be higher.  I usually start with 200 to 400 and go from there.  

Aperture: as open as possible

Shutter speed: pick a shutter speed that is long enough to light the subject, but short enough that ambient light isn't illuminating your photograph.  Start with 15-30 seconds.

Focus: Manually focus on your subject

Light:  flashlight, LED light, iPhone.  This is the experiment part of the technique.  You will have to try different distances, and times with your light until you get the photo you desire.  In the top photo, the light source was an LED light, held very high, and shone from behind the camera for about 3 seconds.  In the windmill photo, the light source was the same, but shone to the side and in front of the camera, about 2 seconds.  (On then off).  

Photographing stars, and the milky way.  You need the same equipment as above.  You need a really, really dark place in order for the stars to be seen.  With star photography, you will start with setting your shutter speed.  If your shutter speed is too slow, the stars with show movement as a line in your photo.  Unless you are photographing star trails, you do not want this in your photo.  You will have to set your shutter speed according to a formula, so you need to know if you have a full frame camera, or a crop camera.  If you have a full frame camera you will use the number 600 divided by your focal length (you want to use your widest lens) to determine your shutter speed.  Example: 600 divided by 16 mm =37.5. So you would set your shutter speed to 37 or 38.  For a crop camera use 400 divided by focal length.  400 divided by 16=25.  Your shutter speed would be 25.  For an Olympus crop camera use 300.  Your focus will be on near infinity.  So that everything within 10 feet, and further will be in focus.  You can see how the truck photo has the truck and stars in focus.