Photography/cameras and associated gear thread.

[angelo]

again maximum zoom and through a tree. Looks eeevil!

[FBM]

Not sure how old this is, but I think I made it last year with a Sigma 400mm, 2X teleconverter and a Nikon D90. I'm still working on ways to get sharper images of the moon. It's harder than I expected.

[chairman bill]

... I'm still working on ways to get sharper images of the moon. It's harder than I expected.

Good, sturdy tripod. Mirror lock-up, cable/remote release. I'd use live view to ensure focus accuracy. Should sort it.

[Wiðercora]

... I'm still working on ways to get sharper images of the moon. It's harder than I expected.

Good, sturdy tripod. Mirror lock-up, cable/remote release. I'd use live view to ensure focus accuracy. Should sort it.

Even with a good tripod, diffraction caused by the atmosphere can cause problems - obviously this depends on your position on Earth and how much atmosphere there is between you and the Moon. The only way to get an absolute crystal clear picture is to be in space.

[chairman bill]

Yes, but within the constraints of terrestrial viewing, maximising your chances of a decent image, requires a tripod and so on

[FBM]

Yeah, I use a good tripod and remote release (or sometimes a timer), but I usually forget to lock the mirror up. Korea is a pretty humid place, too, so it's not really a good place for shooting objects in the sky. I've probably got a better pic of the moon around here someplace, but digging it up would be a chore right now. I recently moved near a national park, so in the spring I plan to find a dark mountaintop.

[angelo]

Not sure how old this is, but I think I made it last year with a Sigma 400mm, 2X teleconverter and a Nikon D90. I'm still working on ways to get sharper images of the moon. It's harder than I expected.

Jeezus Potter Christ!!! That's very sharp already!!

[FBM]

It's alright for amateur work, I guess, but I'm always comparing my images to real pro ones. Sadly, that means I'm almost always disappointed.

[angelo]

It's alright for amateur work, I guess, but I'm always comparing my images to real pro ones. Sadly, that means I'm almost always disappointed.

But pros have thousands of dollars worth of equipment.

[The_Metatron]

I probably have five thousand dollars into my telescope and mount alone. Bolting my K100d onto it still doesn't automatically yield the results I see published.

But, I am starting to figure out why.

Almost none of the stunning shots you see published are a single exposure. They are almost always stacked from hundreds or thousands of frames. They use software to compensate for the atmosphere. For deep sky stuff, signal is summation, while noise adds as the square root of the sum. So, stacking yields improvements in signal to noise ratio beyond what can be achieved over long single exposures.

I need a laptop and I am still figuring out what CCD imager would be best suited to my telescope.

[The_Piper]

I got my new camera, the Lumix zs19. It seems pretty good, I only tried it inside and it works acceptably under the low light in here with autofocus. I should be able to get id-able shots of bugs under the forest canopy, and zoom in to birds and mammals seconds later in decent conditions.
No high speed video setting that I see though. I really wanted to play with that too.
Maybe I should have gotten the latest model for $60 or $70 more. That was out of my price range though, so I probably did ok.
I can't wait to try some scenery.

[FBM]

I've spent an embarrassing amount of money on equipment considering how poorly I use it all. I think the moon shot above was made with my D90, but I recently got a D800E, so maybe that will help make future shots a little more crispy. And I'll try to remember to have the mirror locked up.

[The_Metatron]

It won't matter... Atmosphere shimmer is going to be your limiting factor.

[The_Piper]

I think this is only my 6th major digital camera that I've owned. Though not counting ones I've bought at yard sales that were resold.
Before that I used the same basic Nikon 35mm with 0x zoom for everything. I still have it somewhere.
I bought a couple of new camcorders years ago that I hardly used. Now I have a Sony Hi8 camcorder from a yard sale with a remote control that I could try on woodchucks this summer. It also has infrared night vision. That was only $10!
Speaking of which, I forgot to look into remote shutter control on digital cameras.

[FBM]

Korea is perpetually humid, I'm afraid. Well, unless it's -21C out there at night or something, but fuck photography when it's that cold.

Piper, if you don't have remoter shutter release, you can set it up on the tripod with the timer set to delay for a few seconds. Those few seconds will let the vibrations from pushing the shutter button die down and clear up the shot just the same.

[The_Piper]

Korea is perpetually humid, I'm afraid. Well, unless it's -21C out there at night or something, but fuck photography when it's that cold.

Piper, if you don't have remoter shutter release, you can set it up on the tripod with the timer set to delay for a few seconds. Those few seconds will let the vibrations from pushing the shutter button die down and clear up the shot just the same.

I meant to use the remote shutter control for animals. A wireless one like an old camcorder. They must have point and shoots with them.
The next clear night I'll try the moon with a tripod and timer. Same here, it will be -20 something when I do it. There's internal condensation when I bring the camera back in the house. I've done it before and let it dry before turning it back on and they still work.

[BKSo]

Not sure how old this is, but I think I made it last year with a Sigma 400mm, 2X teleconverter and a Nikon D90. I'm still working on ways to get sharper images of the moon. It's harder than I expected.

Focusing is critical for astro shots. Don't rely on autofocus. Use live view magnified as much as possible to adjust focus.

Also you may want to compare the shot with ordinary photos to see what you can expect.

I took this moon shot many years ago with my Sony V1 compact DC through a $50 Newtonian reflector. I took a few dozen shots and stacked them together.

[The_Metatron]

Focus is what's been fucking with me with my K100D. What I see in the eyepiece is not the same as what the CCD sees. I have no live view with that camera.

I don't think it's going to be suitable.

[angelo]

I got my new camera, the Lumix zs19. It seems pretty good, I only tried it inside and it works acceptably under the low light in here with autofocus. I should be able to get id-able shots of bugs under the forest canopy, and zoom in to birds and mammals seconds later in decent conditions.
No high speed video setting that I see though. I really wanted to play with that too.
Maybe I should have gotten the latest model for $60 or $70 more. That was out of my price range though, so I probably did ok.
I can't wait to try some scenery.

Does it have full 1080 video capability? That's another feature of the TZ30. Doubt I'll ever use it.

[angelo]

Yep, it does. I just checked.