You're welcome Peter..

As I say, I usually get a flash of inspiration about once every 9 months..

Cheers

Liam

Hi all,

haven't done one for a long time..

As you'll know, the tripod mounting socket at the base of the camera body isn't going to let you mount your camera + lens etc., at it's precise centre of gravity when mounting on a tripod, except for maybe an M series 50mm lens. In this case every lens is going to make your kit nose heavy and potentially unstable on a tripod. Even those lenses with a dedicated tripod mount will invariably be slightly out of kilter one way or another, as all bodies will weigh in differently. If you use a TC or two on a longish prime without a separate mount, it could make the camera very unstable on the tripod...

BUT..

All you need is a flash bracket.. like this one..

(These are rushed shots with a little P&S.. don't laugh. :twisted




find the centre of balance of the body | lens | flash etc., and adjust as required like so..




..and your camera will be perfectly balanced, and more stable every time.

I'll do another one of these in another 9 months.. keeping it regular.

Cheers

Liam

Hi,

well the moon's out again tonight, so I'll be out there for the 'through the trees' tree shot in a little while. No wind, so that'll be better. I may take some more of the slurred star shots as well. Just to get a few reserves for the 'competition'.. In a funny way they do seem to work, and they're definitely going to be unique.

Cheers

Liam

Hi Dan,

Nice shot, far better focussed than mine.

No chance tonight, it's been raining on and off for most of the afternoon, and it's still drizzling now, so I'll have to leave it for another night. Oh well, I'll go and get a beer instead..

Here's one from last night that went wrong. I was getting good hand hold speeds with the moon, then pointed at a star.. not quite as much light from it as the moon.. eight seconds later.. this. Not exactly a steady hand..




Cheers

Liam

Hi all,

had a clear evening, so I thought I'd have a go at the moon..




*ist DL | 100-300 FA @ 300 | 1/350 sec @ f8 | ISO 200 | (cropped a fair bit)

I did try with a 500mm Mirror lens and, firstly 2 then just one 2xTC.. and it was too windy. In the end I used the 100-300, and the AF worked, and I got as fast a speed as I would during the day, so mucking about with the tripod for 30 minutes previously was a bit of a waste of time.

Due to the cropping and resizing for posting, it's a bit jaggy at the edges, so I'll probably upsize the original first, and post a new copy later, if it works out better.

I did want to go and get a few shots of it through the trees, but wandering around here early evening with all the upstairs lights on and with a 9" lens on the camera would've got me B&B courtesy of Her Majesty's Constabulary. If it's clear tomorrow night, when I've got more time, I'll go out into the woods and have a go.

Cheers

Liam

I've just got the trial to err.. trial.

OK then..






Cheers

Liam

I'll have to read that again a bit later Dan, I'm just off out now. I think I get it?????????

Hi Daniel,

with the DL (and I assume all the 6mp models) shooting RAW and exporting as a TIFF file will give you a 50 odd MB file without upsizing anyway. Of course this is because it exports TIFFs as 16bit and jpg as 8 bit, hence the difference. Reading the link, that's pointless anyway as their upload software converts 16bit images down to 8bit. Then it goes on to say that it's file size that matters, not dpi (pixel count), and that they want as great as dynamic a range as possible???????

Me no understand. If they want the best quality, then an exported TIFF @ 16 bit (around 50MB) is going to be of better quality than an 8bit jpg upsized with third party software. Nope.. definitely confused my little old brain.. easy to do.

Cheers

Liam

Hi Matt,

sorry, didn't know. If it breaks any rules etc., please delete the post..

Cheers

Liam

Hi Mr. Ist,

there you go..

[ img ]http://ct.pbase.com/g6/93/732293/2/71292888.Z2llf5cy.jpg[ /img ]

http://ct.pbase.com/g6/93/732293/2/71292888.Z2llf5cy.jpg is the image's url, and that just goes in the [ img ] tags as normal. (Right click image on pbase and click properties for url)

Hope that helps,

Cheers

Liam