Once you get an SLR, you'll be taking "serious" pictures. We've got a couple of point and shoot cameras (one film, one digital) and a full-auto SLR (Nikon N6006), but when I'm serious about a photo (and not just making snapshots) I pull out my 21-year old Pentax K1000. The only thing that's "auto" on it is the light meter. If you don't already have knowledge of it, I'd suggest learning all you can about depth of field (or lack thereof). It will help you to truly "compose" your photographs instead of just snapping pictures.
OK, starting to get used to this monster now. I've taken 270 odd pics so far and almost all of them are crap Camera shake is much more of a problem with and SLR than a compact and going to uber high ISO settings isn't always advisable I have managed a few OK ones, still not great but getting better
Yeah, its 3 inches tall and cost me £1.50 I'm gonna buy a better one on friday when i get the telescope attatchments
A simple rule of thumb when shooting: Don't let the camera's focal length exceed the shutter speed you're using. If your focal length is 110mm, but you're shooting at 1/60th shutter speed, the image will blur. In that case, you'd need to either move your shutter speed to 1/125th or reduce your focal length). The exception to that is if you're using a tripod (though the image may still be blurry if the subject is moving) or a flash (not always effective at a distance).
I went shopping today (okay, my sister went shopping and I had to drive her around) and then we went to some shop where she bought some books. So while she's deciding what to buy I'm looking around. I'm quickly done with all the DVDs, games and even the interesting book sections so I just wander around. Then I had a brilliant idea: I saw what kind of calendars they had and quite frankly they didn't look all that great and I found myself thinking "Hey, Dan's pics are way better than that! Haha! Stupid company!" and then "Wait-a-minute..."... So, does anyone know whether you can get calendars printed the same way you can have those online shops for t-shirts and stuff (mini used to do a WF one, IIRC)? Because, IMHO, Dan should do one! We could have Scorp design a pretty cover with the WF logo and then lots of shiny Dan pics or something.
OMG OMG OMG wow Like...wow I don't get my telescope attatchments 'till friday but as the moon was out i had to try and see if i could figure out how its likely to work with a lense-less SLR pointing at the camera fitting on the back of the telescope. I took this by bsically opening a hole in the back of my telescope, removing the lense off the cam and using my fingers to slightly push the camera in and out to try and focus on the stream of light coming out of the back of the scope. Had to hold the camera about 3 inches away in mid air to get this, not easy when your on your knees, over to one side and struggling to hold the camera still....but, wow, what a result!! fookin ell, with a lower iso and longer exposure and no shake i could end up with the best moon shots ever taken.... Take that hubble!!!!!! edit: anyone want the full 3 1/2 mb orig file just ask
Holy shit!!! That's amazing! I totally agree about the calendar idea too. I'd buy one. (as long as they were pretty pics and not bugs. )
I'd like a copy of that moon! That's awesome. Also, can you elaborate a bit more about your equipment - lens(es?) and telescope especially? I've done quite a bit of photography, but other than a few star tracks, I haven't had equipment to do much astral photography. For instance, I haven't gotten shots of the moon where the moon is more than about 3-4 inches at 72 dpi.
I'll upload the full image when i get home, but ill be getting far better shots within days so it might not be worth it The thing about proper astrophotography (i.e. with an SLR) is there is no lense. You just attatch (or in my case last night hold) the camera to the port in the back of the telescope. This port just basically looks right into the collected stream of light. With a telescope a lense doesnt really magnify the image, it only apparently magnifies the image, all you're really doing by changing lenses is narrowing or widening the field of view. With a camera on the telescope all i'll be doing is photography the whole telescope field of view every time. Any enlarging or magnifying will be done in 'post production' on my PC My telescope is a meade 105 etx, quite small but very high quality with unbelievably good contrast. Ive got 3 lenses and a barlow for normal viewing giving me from 46x apparent mag up to about 400X
I prefer plum tomatos instead of beans and fried toast is just a bit to far into greasy world for my liking
Sorry, that was meant to be 2 separate questions: what lenses do you use normally? and What telescope to you have? Since the second has been answered, I repeat the first.
Went into town to get the telescope attatchments today. I was close to the castle and priory so i thought i'd pop up and get a few pics
Normally withe camera i have an 18-55mm lense and 55-300mm lense. On teh scope i have a 9mm, a 26mm and a 40mm, and a 2x barlow
Some from golf today, just about got a squirrel Awful golfions yet again, hopefully Stallion can give me some tips on me crappy swing
Played golf until it was well dark, couldnt see a thing on the last hole, all 3 of us tee'd off and never saw our balls again Played top though, really sorted the swing out Heres tonights sunset
Its a tele-macro, minimum distance to object is about 1.5 meters. It makes macro much much more difficult than my old compact that did macro at 3cm edit: actualy in macro mode its 0.95m This is the lense http://www.jessops.com/Store/s23632...m-F-and-4-56-LD-Macro-(Canon-AF)/details.aspx
