At 11:12 PM -0500 10/1/14, Darren Addy wrote:
Wonderful work Steve! I'm curious: have you done astrophotography like this with other Pentax (or other) DSLR bodies? If so I'm wondering what your thoughts are regarding the K-3 vs other bodies you have used in the past, as far as astrophotography is concerned..
I've been dabbling in astrophotography since I was a teenager in the '70s, starting with attempts to photograph the Moon with a Kodak Brownie through my Tasco 4.5" reflector. It wasn't too successful. I started into it again about 12 years ago, using my old Miranda film cameras with Provia 400, piggybacked on my C5. I lapsed again, though, until last year when I tried digital astrophotography with a Nikon D200 I'd bought third-hand.
I had tried it with my K20D, but it is useless for astronomy, mainly because you cannot turn off the noise reduction.
The D200 is very good up to ISO 800. Above that it craps out. The one I have is very well used and is starting to show its age. I now use it strictly for variable star photometry (measuring the brightness of variable stars) where image quality is not needed. The two lenses I've used on the D200 are lovely: both old AI Nikkors (a 105/2.5 and a 135/2.8) and are pretty much distortion-free even wide open. I was disappointed by my FA 135/2.8 for astronomy, as it has to be stopped down to F3.5 to improve the IQ.
I took my first exposures last week with my SMC-K 200/4 (the Double Cluster and the Pleiades). I haven't looked at them yet.
So far the K-3 seems to be better than the D200. Up to at least ISO 3200 the images are at least as clean as the D200 at 800. Live view is great for photographing the moon, too. And, it is not near the battery pig that the D200 is. The D200 is only good for about 50 exposures before it has depleted the battery. I have yet to have a battery die on the K-3, even after over 150 exposures.
I think the post-processing is the hardest part of astrophotography. After stacking the images out of both cameras are VERY green, I guess because the Bayer array on a sensor is 50% green sensors. It can be very difficult to get the green out without sending the other colours out the window, too.
Anyway, some of my previous astrophotographic and atmospheric phenomena attempts start here -
http://earth.delith.com/gallery5.html -- The Office Gallery - Scenic and Landscape Photography by Steve Sharpe 24 Maple Avenue Ellershouse NS B0N 1L0 d...@eastlink.ca http://earth.delith.com/photo_gallery.html -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
