Hin's Photo Corner

The lithium grease seems to work well with my ball-head and I manage to try my travel camera with Nex 5N on the same Tamron SP 500mm f/8.0 mirror (55BB). It is another problem and challenge to face as the nex is a thin body and I don't have the expensive L bracket. The setup oscillates even when I try to touch the focusing ring. Unlike the Pentax, my travel camera don't have SR for manual lens and with the setup, I pick a higher ISO 400 to shoot the moon yesterday night to gain for a faster shutter to avoid shaking


Tamron SP adaptall-2 500mm f/8.0 mirror (55BB) mounted on NEX 5N



Having a flip out LCD is a big plus especially when the moon rises more to the vertical above.




Tamron mirror and Sony nex 5N on tripod

All documentary pictures was shot single hand with K-5 and FA 43mm as my left hand is holding a remote for the nex 5N setup. I usually do documentary with DA 35 but the 43 is more suited for night shooting




Moon Chasing with Tamron SP adaptall-2 500mm f/8.0 mirror (55BB) and Sony NEX 5N

Having the fold out LCD is a great help especially when the moon is closer to the vertical above you. And I share the same pain on my first shooting where I have to crouch under my tripod to find the moon with K-5. But in actual shooting in hand-held shots without tripod, the optical viewfinder in K-5 allows me to back myself against a wall and brace with the camera aimed high to the moon. The shooting becomes easier without the restraint of tripod. I am lucky to have the lightweight Tamron SP 500mm f/8.0 mirror as it is quite alright to hand-held the moon shots with the mirror lens in iso 200 ~ 400 and have a higher shutter.

And with a fold out LCD, I find the setup with less restraint and with more freedom to find the moon when used on a mono-pod


This is my mono-pod setup with the Tamron mirror mounted on my nex. I have an inexpensive Dolica WT-1003 mono-pod and a very cheap Manfrotto RC2 like quick release from Amazon. I am thinking of Manfrotto 494 ball head for my next upgrade on my lightweight traveling setup. If any of you have manfrotto 494, please help me if there is better alternative that I can consider in similar price range. My current traveling tripod head is Manfrotto 3229 which works better on mono-pod but falls short on a tripod due to absence of a ball head for more directional control.



My boy helps in holding the mono-pod setup. The Tamron mirror lens is actually quite small in use and it is one of long focal lens that I actually enjoy shooting hand-held. But it is best use on a mono-pod if lowest iso is what you are after. The AF ring is very capable for fine tuning. Sharpness and color is very reasonable for such a long focal length. When time allows, I will try to reshoot similar moon pictures with my 300mm with a 1.7x TC -- Photosniper Tair Phs 300mm f/4.5 or my F* 300mm f/4.5

• Moon Chasing with Tamron SP 500mm f/8 mirror and Pentax K-5
• Meteor Night Attempt with Pentax DA 10-17mm fisheye
• Twilight Color After Sunset with Pentax K-5
• Seeing Lights At Night with Pentax K-5
• Tamron SP 500mm adaptall-2 f/8.0 mirror (55BB) 
• Hiking with Tamron SP 500mm adaptall-2 f/8.0 mirror (55BB)
• Hin's Camera Gear

• Moon Chasing with Tamron SP 500mm f/8 mirror and Sony NEX 5N
• Meteor Night Attempt with Pentax DA 10-17mm fisheye
• Twilight Color After Sunset with Pentax K-5
• Seeing Lights At Night with Pentax K-5
• Tamron SP 500mm adaptall-2 f/8.0 mirror (55BB) 
• Hiking with Tamron SP 500mm adaptall-2 f/8.0 mirror (55BB)
• Hin's Camera Gear

I saw clear sky on Monday night driving home. I thought about the lunar images that I see from others. Last attempt was totally ruined by my ball head that is failing to hold the lens and camera in place. And I have this Kenko/Tokina PZ-AF 2x teleplus MC7 that I have not used it since I bought it from ebay.

First, few quick snapshots about my setup




I shot it around 10:30pm and the clouds moved in after first few test shots. I was initially getting a clear shot with shutter speed in 1/125 sec with f/8 in iso 400. As clouds move in, I slow the shutter to 1/20 ~ 1/60 to get a reasonable shot of the moon. I would attempt it with more needed research and a clearer sky to shoot the moon.








Impressions & Notes

• Not too bad if I don't blow it up in larger size
• Focus point is actually not in infinity
• With the 2x TC, I can actually use AF with the Pentax F* 300mm f/4.5. I am surprised
• The 2x TC won't AF on SDM lens with Pentax DA* 50-135mm f/2.8
• Teleplus, MC7, Tokina, Kenko are on the label of the TC
  
• The cloudy sky poses the most problems in the shooting
• I use 2 sec timer, I should have used the wireless remote trigger
• I crop about 50% on the view from the 600mm lens setup with the 2x TC
• The Linhof ball-head still moves a bit. I will retry the setup.
  

Related:

• Meteor Night Attempt with Pentax 10-17mm f/3.5-4.5 fisheye
• Passing Moon YouTube Video by Pentax K-7
• Pentax F* 300mm f/4.5 On Pelicans with Kenko 2x AF TC
• Dynatran AT-CF992 tripod
• Pentax F* 300mm f/4.5
• Tamron-F 2x KR MC4 Teleconverter
• Kiron 2x multipler (m42)
• Pentax-F 1.7x AF TC
  
• Hin's Camera Gear

This is an amazing capture in video with Pentax K-7. You can hear the sound recording from the background. It is a bit unfortunate but it does show how good the built-in microphone that is in Pentax K-7 that can pick up the distant noise in the back alley of the shooting location likely in a patio setting.

The author of the video in YouTube mentions the use of a Skymax 150 Pro along with Pentax K-7. I wish I have a picture to see the setup as I am not familiar with the equipment or whether a special adapter is needed. Is there a lens mounted on the Pentax K-7 to work with the scope or if the body is mounted directly to the scope with a special K-mount adapter? I am guessing on the former. I have the naive questions that I will hopefully post on the YouTube and ask the great author of the video. Please enjoy the great video made from Pentax K-7 and I am proud of what a camera can do with Pentax K-7


Related:

• Pentax K-7 related Videos
• Diego's Amazing video Pentax K-7 on Cambodia trip
• Nikon D90 is Tempting
• Moon Shot with Kenko 2x Pz-AF teleplus MC7
  
• Hin's Camera Gear

I was up early around 2 to 3 am for two nights around the time for Perseid Meteor Night on August 11 and 12 in 2009. I fell really silly to hike up in the Mission Hill of Fremont in two different locations for each night trying to shoot the falling stars with Perseid Meteor. I did see the inactive Meteor happening around 2 to 3 times in an hour but my setting along with gaps between shots fail to catch the Meteor light that went pass me in a split of a second.


My settings:

• Focal length set for 10mm to get the widest angle
  
• Point to North East direction
• Use M mode for metering and MF
• Adjust MF to infinity
  
• Adjust shutter to be maximum at 30 second shutter
• Adjust aperture in f/4.0 and some in f/4.5
• Use sturdy tripod
• Use wireless remote, SR is off in using wireless remote

My mistakes:

• I used jpg due to absence of Lightroom for the post processing
• I have instant display on which results in gaps like 10 to 15 second for instant display of last picture. I should have turned that off completely onec a manual preview ensures good quality of shot
• I attempted Bulb mode but I find it very cumbersome to hold the button release the whole time until the desired shutter time as in 5 minute a bulb shot, there must be a way to use bulb mode without the need to depress the shutter the whole time.
• I have the wrong location where I am not shooting in a hill tall enough to stay away from city lights. As a result, the faint star lights are not as evident unless I darken the background in post processing
• I should have prepared a dark frame, a lighted frame and perhaps other referencing frames so that I can provide the software tool to make a better stacking reference
  

Software for stacking images

Without a copy of photoshop, I look for tools that help in stacking time series pictures of star to show the star trails along with the Meteor traces. I end up trying few tools and I am still in the process of stacking 100 pictures in two nights

• Keith Image Stacker -- this runs in Mac OS-X, for some unknown reason, I can't seem to get any meaningful results in the stacking. It looks very promising and yet it is not intuitive to align the stars from the stacked images
  
  
• Paint.net -- this is a Windows only software that is free to download, I used the Import Layers from the images in a time series of 60 minute of 30 second exposure shots. In the blending mode, I tried 'additive' and leave opacity to half of 0 to 255 -- rougly 125. The results are not great but somewhat recognizable as I can see results of three plane flying paths in layering around 20 images in the series
  
  
• DeepSkyStacker -- this is also another free tool in Windows only, it looks just as promising as the paint.net but so far, I need to fine tune the proper stacking parameters to see the star trails.

Paint.net Layering Attempt

I mainly used import layers from files and I merge the layers with additive blend and a half opacity value of 128 out of the range from 0 to 255. Though not as distinctive as the original pictures, I can see three plane flying paths in the stacked images. I will post question in paint.net forum to seek the right parameters for yet another stacking attempt.



Resources:

Along the process of failed attempts to stack images or to get a good shot of Meteor, the most valuable experience is finding the resources needed for future attempts:

• AstroPhotoInsight
• AstroPhotoInsight in Flickr
• space.com
• How to take Meteor Show from space.com
• Meteor, Meteorite, Meteroroid

Related:

• The Tech Museum
• Xanh in Mountain View
• Pentax DA 10-17mm f/3.5-4.5 in Fireworks
• Perseid Meteor Night Attempt -- Hin's Photo Blog
• Pentax DA 10-17mm f/3.5-4.5 Fish-eye in Museum
  
• Hin's Camera Gear