iOptron SkyGuider

lilmsmaggie said:
Are you making reference to the iOptron SkyTracker:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/979344-REG/ioptron_3302b_skytracker_camera_mount_with.html


Haven't used one myself, although I have considered purchasing one. Vixen also makes something similar that's been around a bit longer than the SkyTracker. Vixen's is called the Polarie:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/843972-REG/Vixen_Optics_35505_Polarie_Star_Tracker.html/?m=Y&gclid=CP-B3IGDv8ICFYWUfgod0hEAbw

I believe the SkyTracker allows tracking at 1/2 sidereal but I'm not certain.

Michael Reichmann of Luminous Landscape discusses his experience with the iOptron skyTracker in the following article:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/techniques/astrophotography_next_steps.shtml


I'm leaning in the direction that Reichmann took. IMHO, the Vixen SXD2 offers more versatility, although both the SkyTracker and Polarie have their place.

The SkyTracker is what I already own. It's great, but won't hold my 500mm lens. The SkyGuider is newer, same company, same idea, but has a higher weight rating.
Upvote 0

Perils of being married to a M.I.L.C. (Man In Love with Cameras)

Besisika said:
AcutancePhotography said:
As soon as my G.A.S even comes close to the amount of money The Wife Unit spends on shoes and handbags, then we can talk. ;D
Sounds fair, not helping with GAS though.

Oh it helps with GAS. After she buys shoes and handbags, we ain't gots no money for photography GAS. :'(

;D
Upvote 0

Advice for Xmas present Tamron 28-300 pzd FF

I have the 28-300 Tamron and also a 5D3. The IQ is surprisingly good for a superzoom and the lens is in my opinion a perfect one stop solution as a hiking/holiday lens.

The image quality isn't perfect but it is good enough. It won't quite compare to the 24-105 + 70-300L combo (especially in the long end) but the Tamron is so much easier to carry around and overall "simpler" package while hiking or skiing that I gladly take the IQ-hit over the greater weight for non critical photos.

I actually sold my 24-105L after using the 28-300 on a few trips since in the wide end the IQ-difference wasn't that big in my opinion.

I usually have the Samyang 14mm with me as a wide angle option and maybe a 50mm f/1.8 for low light situations and these three make a nice and easy to carry holiday kit.
Upvote 0

Sensor life

Hi,
Hillsilly said:
sanj said:
Is there something like 'sensor hours' before it goes bad?
Why assume they will go bad? Maybe we'll discover that sensors get better with age? Perhaps in 100 years time artists will covet the sensors from the early 2000's for their colour shifts, dead pixels, CFA fading, sun damage, laser damage, accumulated background radiation exposure etc etc? All of these should give each sensor a unique signature that sets it apart from the mainstream, making them very valuable. In fact, I'm going to start stocking up now.
Yes... better stock now. In 50 years time, the king of "Canography" will be 1D4 or may be 1DX.... ha ha ha ;D

Have a nice day.
Upvote 0

Fall Fun

Focuzed said:
I like the way the scene is represented with the crop now.
Hi Roger!

If it's perfect to you now, then it's okay and don't read further on ;)


But just one additional comment:
Seeing the piture now that was exactly what i feared when i said
Maximilian said:
... by cutting away just a little bit of the left part of the picture and putting those two girls a little bit more - but not too much - symmetrical to the (new) center.
because now to me it is a little bit too symmetrical.
My aproach would have been like this (either just with or without the red leaf on the left):

Attachments

  • Catch Sis_reframe.JPG
    Catch Sis_reframe.JPG
    2.8 MB · Views: 221
Upvote 0

Canon 5D mkIV

Sporgon said:
privatebydesign said:
the 1DC did surprisingly well, well much better than us stills shooters with $6,000 cameras would think, and has a very good reputation for its size capabilities and price.
Let's hope it doesn't give Canon ideas about raising the next 1Dx price ! ;D

In this case, I doubt it - a friend of mine is working at the movies, and video/film gear simply is in another ballpark completely than basic stills shooting. That's because for video, there's so much more required costing lots of $$$.

The value of the cameras and lenses he's used to work with makes the 1dc's price sound like a disposable Fuji Quicksnap. Reminds me of reports that studios use the 7d as a crash cam for some split seconds of footage, destroying them in the process :-p
Upvote 0

teleconverter

photoguydan said:
never owned one or used one, i have a 70-300L on my canon body , i use to have the 100-400 but its gone and maybe in a year from now ile get the new 100-400 but as for now what would be my best quality 1.4 teleconverter to use? or should i just crop my photos? this will be mainly for airshows since i need that extra reach.

The 70-300 should not be used with canon teleconverters. They will work but at one end of the zoom range the internal optics will touch the TC and can cause damage. There are aftermarket TCs which will work fine but the sharpness will suffer. As mentioned you are better off just cropping the image and use a faster shutter speed.
Upvote 0

External Monitor for Photography

Yep, Camranger is built for you. Do a search for reviews. It's so simple and effective.
Or save yourself the search trouble and read up here; a straight dump from my Camranger/WiFi Bookmarks folder:
http://www.kayellaustralia.com.au/camranger-p-2984.html
http://www.camranger.com/
http://petapixel.com/2013/08/30/shooting-actors-60-feet-broadway-stage-camranger/
http://www.thephoblographer.com/2013/05/19/review-camranger-wireless-tether/
http://www.eye.fi/
http://www.photographyblog.com/news/weye_feye/
http://connect.dpreview.com/post/7915187021/camranger-camerator-dslr-ipad
http://www.kayellaustralia.com.au/camranger-c-199_738.html
http://petapixel.com/2013/08/30/shooting-actors-60-feet-broadway-stage-camranger/
http://www.cameramator.com/index.html

-pw
Upvote 0

Mirror sticking and USB problem on my 7D...

Richard8971 said:
Mt Spokane Photography said:
I missed that it was the original 7D. Unless it can be fixed for $300 or less, I'd consider buying a refurb 7D thru CLP for about $700. You will get a near new camera with a 1 year warranty. Broken ones go for $200-$300 on ebay depending on condition, so spending $400 or $500 to fix it is a losing bet. Chances are that the buyer can fix it for $100 and flip it for a profit.

Refurbs are running $863.00 right now. :(


http://shop.usa.canon.com/shop/en/catalog/cameras/refurbished-eos-digital-slr-cameras/eos-7d-body-refurbished

But, using CLP (Canon's customer Loyalty program), you usually get either 15 or 20% off the regular refurb store price, which brings it down more. You trade in a broken camera, it can be a 35mm SLR, or a broken power shot. Give them the serial number when you call, and they e-mail a shipping label to you. When I see a old 35mm rebel or broken powershot for a dollar or two at a garage sale, I buy it and hold it for the occasion where I'll want a refurb body.

Call Canon and ask them what the current deal is for a 7D body. I doubt if they will give 20% off the $863 sale price, but its worth asking.

You can search the internet for the phone number. They have always been very polite and helpful when I call them. Ask about adding a lens to the deal, sometimes there are 50% off on certain lenses when bought with a body. They might not be ones you want, but some of them are ok.
Upvote 0

GPS Logger with 7D MKII

End of saga.
Took out the 7D2 again today, had the logger enabled.
On my return, asked the camera to copy the logger data to the CF card, then placed the card in a card reader, before connecting the camera to any software.
The GPS log is definitely on the card, means the camera is doing it correctly.
Replaced the card in the camera and connected to the EOS software. Neither the Utility or the EX recognize any logger data available.
Then I replaced the card in the card reader and copied the log file to a hard disk.
Now the MAP utility has no issue reading the logger file on the hard disk and producing the route on a map.
So I would say there is a bug with the Canon software recognizing GPS logger data on the camera.
BTW - the raw LOG file cannot be used by LR, only by the MAP utility. For LR it needs to be converted by a 3rd party software to a format that LR recognizes.
Upvote 0

Is this actually what I should expect from my Canon 70-200/2.8 IS II?

Ryan85 said:
Marsu42 said:
Mitch.Conner said:
Couldn't sleep. That's nothing new though - I don't want you all to think it's related to this.

I understand your predicament, but if you're finished shooting test charts, don't let yourself be detained and get out, shooing something alive ...

... crawling around the frozen scenery during a full moon night, shooting wildlife will help you worry less about pixel sharpness and make you sleep when you return home, you've got my word on that

Note: Sorry to spam the place with horsie shots, it just seemed appropriate here somehow :-o

+1

Ordinarily I don't pixel peep. This is pretty much a first for me.

The photos at infinity focus seem to confirm that there's a problem. Even just the fact that it isn't holding its focus when moved (even though it remained at infinity focus and was back at the same position that it was focused from ) is concerning. It makes me wonder if something is not only decentered, but loose.
Upvote 0

Dpreview: Review of the 7D2

jrista said:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canon-eos-7d-mark-ii/12


I'm happy to see the improvement in noise characteristics on the 7D II here. No vertical banding that I can see. That's extremely nice. This test demonstrates the "color blotch" on the 5D III that I see all the time. I utterly despise that...but it may be editor related. I used to integrate my astro images with DeepSkyStacker (DSS), which is a nice program, fast, does it's job reasonably well. It uses AHD, Adaptive Homogeneity-Directed demosaicing, the same as Lightroom and ACR (and an option in RawThearapy and DarkTable as well.)


I recently started integrating with PixInsights Batch Preprocessing script (BPP), and the results are considerably better. Color noise is much lower. Finer details are better rendered. Color is better, deeper. The noise takes on a cleaner, more random nature. I noticed that it does not use AHD demosaicing, instead it uses an alternative algorithm called VNG.


Anyway...there is no question that the 5D III has banding, but it may be that the horrid color blotch that I hate is not "in" the RAW data...it's more a consequence of demosaicing. If that is the case, then I truly hope Adobe catches on, and revisits the use of AHD, at the very least they could add the option to choose the demosaicing algorithm in the settings or something like that, including VNG as an option.


On a side note...DAMN! Give me that ultra clean quality noise of the D7000 any day! :P *drool* That's even a bit better than what I'm seeing from the NX1.
Is there any banding with D7100 with similar exposure push. That is the reason why DPR compared with D7000 instead of D7100. ;D
Upvote 0

YN 568ex ii Receivers?

I recently invested in the YN568 EX-II, too. It´s amazing. But if you want to use it off camera than please forget the 603 stuff. It does not really make sense if you have the TTL-Flash.

My recommendation is to use the YN-622C-TX on the camera and the 622C under the flash. It works just great. With the YN-622C-TX commander you can control up to 3 "groups" of 622c supported TTL-Flashes (tried it with a Canon and a Calumet Genesis and the Yongnuo) and it worked great!!!

And some more comments and images using 2 YN568 EX-II and th above mentioned set up: please check my blog entry about the topic: http://www.zenfolio.com/zf/transfer/delightphoto/blog/2014/12/ttl-or-not-ttl-shooting-ttl-with-off-camera-flash
Upvote 0

Filter

Forum statistics

Threads
37,443
Messages
973,799
Members
24,808
Latest member
Djiran

Gallery statistics

Categories
1
Albums
29
Uploaded media
372
Embedded media
1
Comments
25
Disk usage
1 GB