Kevin Butler Creative

Kevin Butler Creative 🏞️ | 📷 | 🎥 | 🚁
Sharing my journey as I learn the tools and tricks of capturing landscapes and wildlife. Constellation Studios is more than just a place.

Constellation Studios is a company that is all about the love of sound. More than just a building. A constellation by definition is "a group or configuration of ideas, feelings, characteristics, objects, etc., that are related in some way". This is Constellation Studios at it's heart. Whatever your project, whatever your need, Constellation strives to offer you with the tools, talent, and time you need.

4 locations & 4 stories of secondary compositions that ended up stealing the show! Swipe to read about each!Madison Buff...
06/23/2026

4 locations & 4 stories of secondary compositions that ended up stealing the show! Swipe to read about each!

Madison Buffalo Jump State Park, | Logan MT
I went to this location to capture a different composition but I hiked a way up the hill and saw this convergence of the trails leading to the Milky Way core. It wasn’t until I was editing it that I realized the trail was visible all of the way to the horizon!

Ennis Lake | McAlister Montana
As I waited for the Milky Way to line up with my main subject, I found this secondary composition. I love how the green grass on the shore compliments the green air glow in the sky.

I typically capture wider focal lengths for Milky Way photography, I captured this moment after my main wide shot. This is 50mm and I love how the galactic core feels imposing on the mountains.

I captured this composition at 14mm and 24mm. While the 14mm landscape shot looks epic, this 24mm portrait shot really makes the Milky Way look huge.

🌌 🦬 Every time I scout a location for Milky Way photography I try to imagine what type of composition would do the place...
06/22/2026

🌌 🦬 Every time I scout a location for Milky Way photography I try to imagine what type of composition would do the place justice. When I visited Madison Buffalo Jump State Park I knew it would be an excellent candidate for my first attempt at both a blue hour blend and a 180* Milky Way arch panorama.

🌅 I returned right after sunset, found the strongest composition I could, and set up my tripod and star tracker. Then waited for blue hour to fully set in. Once it did, I captured 12 images for my foreground. Then I headed back to the car and waited for the darkness to fully set in.

🌌 Just before midnight I headed back out to my setup to capture the sky. I polar aligned my Move Shoot Move Nomad and captured 14 sky images with 1 minute exposures.

👨🏼‍💻 To stitch the panos together I found that the Ptgui app was the best choice to make the image come to life. I then composited the sky and the foreground exposures to achieve this final image. Like all of my Milky Way photography, the sky appears in this image where it was that night. The multiple exposures are just to make the photo work.

How do you think it turned out?

06/21/2026

🌌💫 My favorite image from 2026 (so far). What do you think?

I was surprised to see the fait northern lights as I reviewed my photos from the back of the camera. I took a longer foreground exposure and the water was lit up purple from the glow in the sky.

The edit is 324 sky images stacked using StarStax and one foreground image composited via Photoshop.

After refining the edit a friend with a print shop suggested we try printing it on metallic paper. It turned out incredible. I can’t wait to begin offering photos like this for print! If that’s something you’d be interested in, shoot me a DM and let’s chat!

06/20/2026

Have you ever wanted to learn how to create images with star trails? This explanation gets you started but honestly there are a lot of ways to do the post processing. Below are the basic steps needed to create photos like this:
1. Capture 200-400 images with the stars in focus and exposed properly. If you want a visible foreground I suggest a blue hour blend
2. Clean the satellite/plane trails with Star Trail CleanR
3. Stack the images with StarStax or Sequator. Try different modes for different results!
4. Create a final composite in something like Photoshop (masking is your friend!)
5. Edit to taste

What do you think? Have you tried this? What have you learned that I, and others, could benefit from?

06/18/2026

😱 After working on my composition for awhile I looked up to see what appeared to be a pair of eyes at the tree line. Not moving. Not blinking. Was it just a sign post? I kept getting my camera ready for the shot.

I looked up again to see 3 sets looking back at me. That’s when I zipped up my bag, started my interval timer, and filmed this as I walked out. I didn’t know at the time that what I was seeing was indeed just deer. But still. 🫣

Anything for the photo though, right? Being out capturing nightscape images in Montana has its drawbacks, but I can’t pass up the dark sky’s of big sky country!

🌌💫 I’ve only attempted 3 star trail astrophotography images and they’ve all turned out special and unique. Swipe to see ...
06/12/2026

🌌💫 I’ve only attempted 3 star trail astrophotography images and they’ve all turned out special and unique. Swipe to see them all and share your favorite with someone that needs to see it!

💡 For those that don’t know, star trail photography is a technique where many (in this case a little over 300) exposures are taken and then blended together. I’ve found I like stacking with StarStax for Mac, but Sequator and Photoshop can both get interesting results. Each of these images represent hours of editing as I learn the art of exposure stacking, photoshop, light painting, and more.

📝 Details: each image has at least 300 exposures with a 15s exposure. I used an interval timer set to 16s so there was only 1s between exposures. I used “Star Trail CleanR” for Mac to eliminate plane/satellite trails. The first and 3rd image have separate foreground images. The tree photo was light painted separately from the sky exposure.

It’s rare that conditions align perfectly. So many things have to go right: the planning, the preparation, the weather, ...
06/03/2026

It’s rare that conditions align perfectly. So many things have to go right: the planning, the preparation, the weather, and the ex*****on. But sometimes you have to pivot.

I was planning on going out to Gardiner MT to shoot astrophotography at the entrance to Yellowstone National Park on May’s the new moon. The problem? Clouds were forecast to hit over that window. I opted to hit my window a few days early. I packed my gear and headed out at 11pm to drive the 90 minutes to my location.

I photographed all alone throughout the night. The results speak for themselves! I tried a few new techniques and adapted to overcome some environmental issues (annoying light pollution!).

06/02/2026

If you’ve wanted to learn how to take epic photos of the night sky, here’s what you’ll need:
1. Camera (even an iPhone can work, but a modern digital camera is best)
2. Dark, cloudless and moonless sky
3. Sturdy tripod
4. A compelling foreground (if you want to see the Milky Way, you’ll be facing south/south east)
5. A plan (use to try out Milky Way alignments)
6. Patience and practice.

Keep in mind that capturing the photo is only the first half. Editing is where astrophotography and night-scape images take shape. Shoot in RAW for maximum editing flexibility (even phones can do this now!). Have patience, experiment, and have fun… oh and bring bear spray and/or a friend because it can be terrifying alone at night. 🫣

Wishing you good luck and clear skies!

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