Hello,
My name is David. I am based in Melbourne.
By day I am an engineer working for Toyota Techincal Center Australia.
In my spare time I am a keen photographer, although lately I have not shot much
I am in the process of making a photography website but for now, you can check out my flickr site if interested (good and bad photos on here)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidca...y/collections/
Later this year I am travelling to Port Douglas to see the Solar Eclipse.
I have been researching what is required to capture the event and have decided that an equatorial mount would be a good option. So I will have some questions I will post about options later (Initial thoughts below).
Whilst researching mounts and whether I would be better off with a telescope of my existing camera lenses for the eclispe, I came to realise that an old lens I purchased in Japan secondhand will be excellent for wide field astrophotography due to is wide aperture (200mm f1.8)
My parents have a farm/property south of Warragul, Victoria in the Strezlecki Ranges and although in near warragul, the light pollution is a lot less than melbourne, so I have a dark(er) site for viewing/astrophotography.
So initially, I plan to start off with an equatorial mount and existing cameras/lenses. In the future, if I become more serious, I may add a telescope for planet/deep space stuff, but at this stage I think I need to practice a lot before rushing in to things.
Current camera gear which I think could produce results are
16-35/2.8L II
100/2.8L Macro
200/1.8L
300/2.8L
Canon 7D (stock)
Canon 5DmkII (stock)
Would love to get a cooled dslr but will practice first with my current bodies.
Current equatorial mount that I am thinking about it
Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro GoTo Mount as it would serve well with my current gear and future upgrades as well as being just under what I could send in checked in luggage (my girlfriend travels light, so she ends up checking in gear for me
)
Can anyone recommend the best places to buy gear from and also some must read books?
Thanks
David