widdle baby steps :P

[fringe_dweller]

I am posting a single 3.2 minute pic, processed from the jpg, of smw using kit lens at 18mm f3,5 350D, which is in fact our first quided long exposure using a digital camera, until now, film all the way - altho its not pretty, and a bit on the red side as i like the darkmatter a lot, also didnt get focus right either :P - but dammit i think i will get it little shoes silvered, as it the beginning of an interesting phase maybe :shrug:
the comet shot from same night was our second guided long exposure we took :D
it was a lot simpler than I thought it would be - weird - anyway resistence is futile as they say

[jase]

Well composed. Nice work.

[fringe_dweller]

Thanks Jase :thumbsup: btw on behalf of Stewart also, I should of mentioned earlier! -
we tend to work as a duo/team on the tracked stuff, we find its easier sharing the workload (and having good company/backup in the bush/country on field trips), and it's his 11 yr/old vixen GP/C8 we hand guide with also, as we always have.

[iceman]

Excellent first attempt, kearn! Once focus is right they'll be great. Excellent composition and exposure.

[Garyh]

Thats a good first step Kearn!!
A little trick I do with the kit lense is to focus while still light (autofocus) on a distant object , flick to MF, then sticky tape the barrel so you can`t accidently turn the barrel and change the focus...usually works well..
Cheers Gary

[Geoff45]

Yeah'
Trying to focus those things manually is a real pain. In some other thread, someone suggested setting the camera so that only the middle focussing red light was active and then using that to autofocus on a bright star. He claimed that it worked well, but I haven't tried it yet.
Geoff

Note added: See leon's post in the thread http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=17000

[fringe_dweller]

Thanks for the comments guys :) appreciate it! :-))
I was doing the 'manually focus, then take a test pic and check it by zooming in on back opf camera lcd monitor, keep repeating till correct, method, which worked 'ok-ish' for me with tripod shots recently, - but Stewy was getting impatient as i was up to my third attempt at getting focus right by then (i also had NR on so was making it even slower) :P and we were only messing around as a test at the time, and he said that'll do 'lets go' hehe -
But I noticed how good/sharp your comet shots were Gary, so your method obviously works well - and as you say Geoff, Leons shots are great too - so his method obviously works well to :confuse3: seems to be a few ways to go :thumbsup: its nice to have choices :)

[ving]

got some good DSOs in that kearn :)

[RB]

Well done Kearn.

Great start indeed.

:thumbsup:

[leon]

Nice first go Kearn, it is amazing how many ways there are to focus, and we all adopt a method that suits us.


Cheers Leon :thumbsup:

[fringe_dweller]

Cheers David, Andrew and Leon :) glad ya liked them - it was fun taking them, we've never had that luxury of reviewing what you have straight away, felt like stone/medieval age meets computers - hard to get used to that one! we were going 'uggg' as we saw the magic picture come to life! altho i still like film a lot for a few reasons -
anyway I had a go at the RAW version/converted - they sure a bit nicer again to work with when in 16 bit tIF eh, sharpening/highlights definately work better - here it tis - thanks for looking :thumbsup:

[fringe_dweller]

Andrew, should mention, using NR seems to have got rid of the worst of the banding! this is an iso 1600 image (i had never used it before - I had bad experienes with the old nikons with there NR, and as a result thought it was useless on the canon for some reason, without even trying it? oh well) - but its till there if you look hard, like stretching and inverting shows it up bad - curious! NR seems to make 1600 iso like the equivelant of 800 or a 1200 anyway - strange ;)

[RB]

Yes I see what you mean, but you have to look for the banding, wasn't obvious to me right away.

The in-camera NR is a great feature indeed.
I'm not a huge fan of ISO 1600, but this obviously depends on the object being imaged and I still use it but I prefer ISO 800.

You've done very well !
Looking forward to more from you.

:thumbsup:

[fringe_dweller]

Thanks again RB! looking forward to trying on a long exposure 800 and lower i guess - hopefully not to far away, have got the bug back bad now :)

[acropolite]

Nice effort Kearn, look forward to seeing more.