3 posts tagged “fisheye”
A few of us drove up to Tahoe for some good times and long exposures. The first shot works out to be about 1.5 hours of exposure with the 10.5mm. The second photo is a stitched panorama composed of 4 photos taken at ISO 3200 @f/3.2 with my new Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8.
Sorry for the rant...
Here are a couple photos from a small get-together with some new friends. Taken about 20-25 minutes North of Reno, the photo below illustrates the light pollution that city-dwelling astronomy enthusiasts must deal with. The 10" Meade scope still provided some beautiful views. Notice the constellation Orion just over Richard's shoulder and his Edmond's Scientific scope in the background. We had a great time looking at Mars, Saturn, Andromeda, The Great Orion Nebula, the Pleiades, double cluster (NGC869 and 844) and the Moon.
There are two major hurdles doing lunar and planetary photography with a D-SLR through a scope: Focusing and combating atmospheric seeing conditions. Compared to a nice, bright eyepiece, looking through a DSLR provides a much dimmer, wider field of view that makes it very difficult to perform fine focusing. There are solutions, either using a computer to control exposures and analyze focus as you take multiple photos adjusting the focus each time or by utilizing a live-view if your camera supports it.
Even if "perfect" focus is achieved, a photo may still appear to be blurry due to atmospheric conditions (heat rising, ect). Looking through a scope during "poor to moderate seeing" is like looking through heat-waves (see this 45 second clip of Jupiter for example). The best lunar and planetary images are done by using webcams that are capable of super-fast frame rates of 100+ frames per second. Software goes through hundreds of photos to find the sharp ones.
Even under decent seeing, I'm still having great difficulty focusing without the aide of a computer, a webcam or live-view. I did get a couple sharp ones and they look amazing when viewed at their full 10MP resolution (something you cannot get with a webcam). This is not cropped and gives you an idea of the field of view I get with the setup.
Finally, here is a candid group shot with me at the scope.
Here are some shots from a spur of the moment decision to go shoot some skateboarding. There was really very little prep time to set up lighting (the sun was going down very fast). We called my friend Abe (who I haven't seen in almost a year) to see if he'd be up to skating for us. Abe was very patient, Fielding "attempted" to skate, all in all a good time.
The tech specs: Nikon d2x, Nikon 10.5mm Fisheye, 2x SB-800 speedlights (one on a light stand)
This was really my first attempt at skate photography (or any kind of sports photos) and I really want to do more. This also makes me want to own the 10.5mm (thanks to Fielding for letting me borrow it).
There were some hurdles that can be overcome with practice. These are:
- Avoiding unwanted objects in the frame of the fisheye (while not looking through the viewfinder at low angles
- Lighting (especially when it gets dark)
- Ambient light at fast sync speeds in low light
- Timing (using CLS, you really only get one shot)
I'm not used to shooting a ton of shots, but I managed to keep filling my card up (mainly lighting test shots). Regardless, out of the whole shoot, these were the only decent ones that I got. I haven't seen any of Fielding's yet, but I'm assuming his turned out well. He shot the 12-24 DX the whole shoot.
Stay tuned for more...
