Photograph the Milky Way

So I had a bunch of questions about photographing the Milky Way.
So I thought I would share this info here as well.

Is it hard to do? No, you just need a few things. Dark skies, Tripod, camera with manual and a wide prime lens (preferably f/2.8 or faster).

Doesn't it take hours of processing? It should only take a few minutes in Lightroom if you understand the program.

Here are a few starting setting for you.
After trying these play around with your setting.
ISO 1600 @ f/2 for 25 seconds.
The lens I use are the M.Zuiko 12mm f/2 and the M.Zuiko 8mm f/1.8 fisheye.
These are my favorite lens for star photography.

And my favorite camera is the Olympus E-M1. I shot Large Jpeg & RAW at the same time. The in camera Noise Reduction works great on the E-M1's Jpegs. But if I want to process the image later. I will do the Noise Reduction in the RAW file myself.

You will need to shoot facing South so make sure there are no towns or clouds in that direction.
Also try to find a foreground of some kind. I like to use cactus because I live in the Sonoran desert. It is home to the Saguaro cactus.

Here is a before & after screen shot of my Lightroom program.
BTW...As Mike Boening can tell you I only spend 2 or 3 minutes editing my Milky Way photos.
Of course you can do a bunch of other adjustments to this. And this isn't the only way to shoot stars. But I wanted to share a nice solid and easy way for you to get start.

The bright light on the lower left is the city of Phoenix. You would normally crop something like that out. But I wanted you to able to see the whole shot and all my setting...the good and bad!

This shot is straight out of camera.

After edit's