weekly John's 2012 52 - Week 51/52 - Time/Fun (27th Dec) Finished !

Hi John,

Grunge: Nice detail and composition in both the shots.

Food: is that a Pain au Chocolate? Drool! Lover the lighting, but agree the plate either needs to be in more or not at all.

Opposite: Nice tree stump, great DOF. Not sure on the interpretation of the theme though or is it me being stupid?
 
Thanks for the comments Marsha... I'll work on the plate, and you're right it's a Pain au Chocolate ;)

For opposite, my thinking was... the tree stump is dead, and it's surrounded by life... life and death being opposites... guess that wasn't clear enough
 
Thanks very much Michael
 
jgs001 said:
For opposite, my thinking was... the tree stump is dead, and it's surrounded by life... life and death being opposites... guess that wasn't clear enough
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No, I did wonder that at the time, but it was very late at night (or early in the morning) and I couldn't think what to write, as I expected it was me being stupid!
 
Thanks Alex

No worries Marsha ;)
 
Rather a poor showing this week... spent all my spare time this week constructing kitchen cupboards... still..

Developments in lightweight portable astrophoto mounts
IMG_4524.jpg


Kitchen Developments
IMG_4526.jpg


Neither is particularly good photographically... but... hey
 
I think number one could be improved by having a different background further away, say on a table:thinking: The leg on the right of the bigger mount has been clipped a little too, but I like the detail in them! What exactly do they do?

They look like very shiny cupboard doors! It took me a while to figure out why the handles look like they're levitating!!

Maybe not your best work to date, but they do fit the theme and you have been busy! Your kitchen looks very nice too:thumbs:
 
I agree completely Marsha... Finding a decent background was never going to happen, and I may reshoot this in the future. The bigger mount is my redsnapper tripod ;). They are for tracking the apparent motion of the stars... the little one is a tabletop EQ1, cheap and poor accuracy, the shiny silver one is an Astrotrac... accurate, and weighs less than half the EQ1. Here's an example with the Astrotrac...

9 of 5 minute exposures at 50mm... ok, I messed up the framing, and missed my target, but it works really well.
wide50atfl9x5.jpg


On a camera tripod, I can get about 8 seconds, before the stars trail, and on the EQ1, about 1 minute.

The doors are indeed shiny, very very shiny :D I might have overdone the contrast a bit ...
 
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I've just had to Google what an Astrotrac was, I'm still a bit clueless!

jgs001 said:
9 of 5 minute exposures at 50mm... ok, I messed up the framing, and missed my target, but it works really well.
Click to expand...

Does this mean you took 9 five minute exposures? What do you mean you messed up the framing? It looks good to me?

jgs001 said:
On a camera tripod, I can get about 8 seconds, before the stars trail, and on the EQ1, about 1 minute.
Click to expand...

I take it this is a good thing?

Ok so I'm intrigued as to how this contraption works? I always look at the sky and think 'that would look good in a photo' but have no clue how to do it!

jgs001 said:
The doors are indeed shiny, very very shiny :D I might have overdone the contrast a bit ...
Click to expand...

I like to look at other peoples kitchens with shiny doors, but would never own them myself as I think I would be cleaning finger prints and grubby marks off all the time:bonk:
 
Yes, That's right Marsha, 9 exposures of 5 minutes each.. stacked. This increases the SNR. As for messed up the framing, I wanted to get Mel111 and Arcturus in frame, and I didn't... So, I didn't frame what I wanted ;)

The longer the exposure, the fainter the stars you can see... 8 seconds is nothing... 1 minute is barely scratching the surface... 5 minutes is good, 10 is better. Then shoot between 30 and 50 frames all the same, and combine them for an integrated time of some 3 to 6 hours...

The Astrotrac has a motor that turns a screw thread at Sidereal rate (the rate the earth spins), which means that, as long as the axis is correctly aligned the camera will pretty much always be pointing at the same stars. It weights less than 1 Kg (the EQ1 weights something like 3 Kg), yet can hold some 15Kg thanks to it's design (the EQ1 will struggle with more than about .75Kg). That doesn't take into account a number of factors, drive train errors etc etc. it gets very very complex...

:D.. I can appreciate that... they get very messy very quickly...
 
jgs001 said:
Yes, That's right Marsha, 9 exposures of 5 minutes each.. stacked. This increases the SNR. As for messed up the framing, I wanted to get Mel111 and Arcturus in frame, and I didn't... So, I didn't frame what I wanted ;)
Click to expand...

It's a good thing I was drinking brandy when I read this:bonk:

I agree with Michael, that's an interesting gadget!

Thank you for explaining everything.
 
Thanks Michael...

:D.. Marsha

Looking forward to trying it out later in the year... see if I can get a target or three that can't be had from the UK ;)...
 
:gag: what a week... started with working hard over the weekend, got an infected thumb :gag::gag: and then didn't get any time... so I'm gonna stretch a bit, use a large crowbar, and shoehorn in an older shot from a week or so ago...

I know this doesn't show satisfaction in any way... but I get a great sense of satisfaction at the quality of the lens used ;)...

A Speckled Bush Cricket Nypmh - 70-200 with the Raynox
IMG_4519.jpg
 
Still not getting any time... so a quick grab during lunch... I decided to use my variable ND filter to get a long exposure and try and capture some of the wind blowing the tree about...

Undecided between colour and mono, so you can have both ;)

IMG_4602.jpg


IMG_4602-Version2.jpg
 
Hi John

Some very imaginative shots in your thread, especially liking your wk4 Communicate shot and the showing of how you set these types of shots up

Also wk7 Simple stands out very nicely too, what great colours and tree shape !!!!

All in all some very nice shots indeed, Opposites and Satisfaction in the last few also I really like

I should try and get around to looking through the '09'ers 52's more often :bang:
 
Thanks very much for stopping by and taking the time DK

Thanks very much Michael, gotta say, for the amount the Variable ND didn't cost (£30 and it's even cheaper now), now I understand it's use and how far not to push it :D, I think it works rather nicely.
 
One of These, I figured, as I couldn't afford something like a fader, and the money wasn't too bad, it would be worth a shot.
 
The only issue I found, like with lenses you can 'focus' to beyond infinity... these turn to just beyond the Max setting, before coming back to a less dark setting, but if you do that, you end up forming an odd dark cross, just avoid that and it seems to work nicely. I'm guessing they use a pair of polarisers to reduce the light throughput.
 
Hi John,

Satisfaction is a great shot, the detail is amazing. But again I had to Google what a Raynox was:bonk: I know how fine the DOF is when shooting in macro and bugs not staying still so you have done well. Although if the eye had been caught in focus it would have even better! But now I am looking (on my phone) and can't tell if the eye is OOF or naturally opaque!

Up, I also prefer the colour version, the colour of the leaves and the contrasting blue adds to the depth. The composition and the angle are spot on:clap:

I have recently bought the same ND variable filter but not used it yet.

jgs001 said:
The only issue I found, like with lenses you can 'focus' to beyond infinity... these turn to just beyond the Max setting, before coming back to a less dark setting, but if you do that, you end up forming an odd dark cross, just avoid that and it seems to work nicely. I'm guessing they use a pair of polarisers to reduce the light throughput.
Click to expand...

Do you get the odd dark circles if you combine focusing to infinity and going beyond max? I think I need to actually get out and play with my filter to find out!
 
Thanks Marsha, I thought I'd got the focus on the eye.. I just checked it in Aperture at 100%, and there is texture in the eye... not sure... it does look milky though...

Ignore my comment about lenses focusing beyond infinity, it has no effect on the ND filter, it's a major pain for astro imaging though. As long as you don't take the Variable ND beyond the Maximum circle, you don't get the cross effect.. I've got an image which shows it clearly somewhere. The image for UP the filter was set on the Max circle.

Here you are (this is not part of the 52 ;))

IMG_1174.jpg


It was very obvious on the screen, but at the time I thought it was caused by the sun being just out of shot, upper right. I saw the effect setting up the shot for up though, which shows it's the filter, and just backed off a little on the variableness.
 
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Yep most weird, you're right DK it does... I tested it with the filter off the lens, and I can see this effect... I'm not sure how these work, but I'm guessing it's a pair of polarised lenses, and the rotation changes the amount of light through. I don't recall having seen this effect during my optics experiments on my physics course, but then it was quite some time ago now ;), the only thing I can think of is a weird polarisation effect at the cross over point, probably due to being a cheap filter... Doesn't matter though, now I know it's there I can easily avoid it.
 
Well... another week with not enough time... I was able to grab this though, and it's probably the only oppo I've had to get the camera out.

IMG_4604.jpg
 
Thanks very much DK
 
Thanks Michael... it's not a basket though ;)
 
Thanks very much Alex
 
Another week, yet again, no time... getting a bit fed up with this to be honest... ho hum...

anyway, a quick grab from today... I've had a number of ideas, just not the time to implement..

A duo of sweets in a jar

IMG_4616.jpg


Actually, there's a second Duo in there, one of the sweets is split in two...
 
Thanks DK, I didn't notice the ribbon had slipped... ah well.. maybe I'll get a chance to reshoot it later.
 
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