Sigma 150-600mm contemporary

Nope, rubbish attempt all of them.

:coat:

Are pidgeons the staple diet or is it that they eat what's readily available ?
 
damianmkv said:
Nope, rubbish attempt all of them.

:coat:

Are pidgeons the staple diet or is it that they eat what's readily available ?
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Yea, they mostly eat anything, any roadkill seem acceptable. Squirrell, rabbit, pheasant etc as well as chicken thighs from our local chicken processing plant factory shop.
 
^
I was just processing some moon shots I took last night with my m4/3 gear when a box popped up for a DXO update. While waiting for that I opened up my mail and there was your excellent moon shot! I really began to doubt my sanity and then the coincidence dawned on me.
 
some great shots of the moon both. Would you mind sharing a bit more on your setup? Did you go to particularly low light pollution spots? Did you leave the camera/lens outside for a bit to acclimatise etc. first?
 
rackhs said:
some great shots of the moon both. Would you mind sharing a bit more on your setup? Did you go to particularly low light pollution spots? Did you leave the camera/lens outside for a bit to acclimatise etc. first?
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Hi Steve, this was from my garden, in a semi rural area, but the area I am in still has a lot of street lights along the road. I had my 150-600 on a tripod and it was probably around 5 minutes on there as I was getting the cameras ready. The stacked shot, I had my eos M set to self timer delay for 10 seconds and 5 shots one after the other. I then put these into starstax to stack. Edited in elements via the nik plugin. Camera was on shutterspeed priority and auto Iso.
 
rackhs said:
some great shots of the moon both. Would you mind sharing a bit more on your setup? Did you go to particularly low light pollution spots? Did you leave the camera/lens outside for a bit to acclimatise etc. first?
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I took mine from right outside my front door. Seeing as it was probably -5C at the time there was no acclimatizing. :) We live in an urban area so the streetlights were on. This was taken with a Nikon D750 (on a tripod triggered with wireless remote) on aperture priority I believe. A couple of hours later, when in bed, I realized I should also have used my do D7000 for a seemingly closer shot. C’est la vie. Next time. Regarding crop, the fx image size was approximately 20x13 and so I cropped it to canvas size of 12x8.
 
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thanks both, that is great.

Never tried stacking shots, but may have to give it a go :)

But again, it shows how good this lens is!
 
michael23 said:
Hi Steve, this was from my garden, in a semi rural area, but the area I am in still has a lot of street lights along the road. I had my 150-600 on a tripod and it was probably around 5 minutes on there as I was getting the cameras ready. The stacked shot, I had my eos M set to self timer delay for 10 seconds and 5 shots one after the other. I then put these into starstax to stack. Edited in elements via the nik plugin. Camera was on shutterspeed priority and auto Iso.
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Just another quick question :-). Shutter priority, what speed per capture did you go for?
 
rackhs said:
Just another quick question :-). Shutter priority, what speed per capture did you go for?
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You don't really need an answer because you can experiment. The moon isn't going to run away, so if you take a photo and you don't like it, you can adjust the shooting parameters and try again.

To get your parameters in the right ball park to start with though, you can do a bit of science.

Firstly you want to get the overall exposure about right. The moon is in bright sunlight, but its albedo (reflectivity) is low, only 6%. So you could start by applying the Sunny-16 rule, and then add a couple of stops of exposure if you want the moon to look bright (as you usually see it pictured, and as it usually seems to us) rather than quite dark (as it really is). That would give you something like ISO 100, f/8, 1/100th.

Secondly you want to check whether the moon's apparent motion has any implications for your shutter speed. The moon traverses 360° of the sky in about 24 hours due to the earth's rotation, which is 15° per hour or ¼° per minute. The angular diameter of the moon is about ½°, so it traverses its own diameter in about 2 minutes. With a 600mm lens on a DX camera your field of view will be about 2¼° by 1½°, so the moon will take up 1/3rd of the width of your sensor which is about 1300 pixels. Moving by 1300 pixels in 2 minutes is a bit over 10 pixels per second, so any shutter speed faster than about 1/10th will freeze the motion at the pixel level. Obviously that's not going to be a concern for a sunlit object.
 
Not the best, but had a very quick try this evening. Tried to do some stacking but can't be doing it right. this image is a single shot rather than a stacked image. Taken from inside the house pointing out of the loft window. Will go outside next time to try and help reduce heat interference etc. :) Still more to learn and practice!

Moon by rackhs, on Flickr
 
Has anyone got any experience using this with a solar filter for shots of the sun? I'm heading somewhere where there'll be a partial eclipse and am interested in thoughts.
 
celnav said:
Has anyone got any experience using this with a solar filter for shots of the sun? I'm heading somewhere where there'll be a partial eclipse and am interested in thoughts.
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No different to using any other lens with a solar filter. If you have a general question about solar filters you'd be better off asking it in a separate thread where more people will see it.
 
celnav said:
Has anyone got any experience using this with a solar filter for shots of the sun? I'm heading somewhere where there'll be a partial eclipse and am interested in thoughts.
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It takes one perfectly fine, the one I use is an astro baader solar film which was already in a holder when purchased, it has 3 tightening screws to attach to the outer of the lens. The image below was taken with it attached. Edit this one https://www.firstlightoptics.com/solar-filters/astrozap-baader-solar-filter.html

The Sun, 16th August 2016 by Michael Johnson, on Flickr
 
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