Re: question about film astro photography

Jim wrote:
I'm fairly new to this group and astronomy and astro photography in
general. I have tried
to take a few shots of the moon over the years unsuccessfully. <snip>
I have an older . . . The lens is a Sigma 75-250mm lens. <snip>

The following book has a series of tables and explanations on how to
take photographs with an unmounted 35mm camera.

Covington, M. 2ed. 2002. Astrophotography for the Amateur. Cambridge.
ISBN 0-521-62740-0
http://www.covingtoninnovations.com/

Before you get the book, you can use online film exposure calculators
to estimate exposure times:
http://www.rphotoz.com/astrophoto/expcalcs.html
- that are built around Covington's book and downloadable exposure
calculator:
http://www.covingtoninnovations.com/astro/astrosoft.html

Jerry Lodriguss's website has good tips online.
http://www.astropix.com/HTML/I_ASTROP/I06/I0602/I0602.HTM
http://www.astropix.com/HTML/I_ASTROP/TOC_AP.HTM

Constellation shots are a good place to start.
http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/sowlist.html

For constellation shots, go to a dark sky rural site. Start out with a
50mm lens at f/2.8. With ISO 400 film, try a series of exposures at 10
sec intervals from 20 through 50 secs. This will let you hone in on
the right exposure time. It also helps to have a gray card and a red
flashlight. Between each sky exposure, exposure a quick shot of the
red light on the grey card. That will help the photo lab decide where
one frame starts and ends.

For starter photos, star trails are also interesting.
See - Lodriguss on star trails
http://www.astropix.com/HTML/I_ASTROP/I06/I0601/I0601.HTM

A variant of the star trail technique is the defocused star trail
method, popularized by David Malin:
http://www.aao.gov.au/images/captions/misc011.html

This is done by starting out the exposure focused, and then turning to
defocus every ten seconds.

The constellation Orion, currently overhead, looks particularly cool
using this technique. It really brings out the spectral colors of the
stars.
http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/class-g.html

- Canopus56

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Getting better photos -how?
    ... Has it been manipulated in Photoshop, or did you shoot it that way? ... For example, a meter on a white bird, set the exposure ... interested in taking panorama shots, and have read that you really need ...
    (rec.photo.digital.slr-systems)
  • Re: Getting better photos -how?
    ... technical aspects (knowing how to operate the camera settings etc.). ... For example, a meter on a white bird, set the exposure ... and make adjustments so only losing a few shots. ... then use Photoshop to put the ...
    (rec.photo.digital.slr-systems)
  • Re: just shot a bunch of raw snow
    ... trust the exposure meter you'll get washed out shots every time. ... I never knew that cameras were absolulte morons until ... The procedure is simple, before you start shooting, take a few test shots. ... Take a photo, then check the histogram. ...
    (rec.photo.digital)
  • Technology in cameras
    ... That is why many folks like a camera which allows manual ... manually (aperture preferred exposure). ... I do fiddle with the exposure on probably half my shots, that was almost my only trick on the P&S. ... At least for the wide to normal focal length lens. ...
    (rec.photo.digital)
  • Re: Exposure confusion...
    ... So that I could take better pictures of objects, I recently purchased both a light box and a six foot wide white backdrop. ... I am baffled that using the 85 watt lights and backdrop, the Canon S3 underexposes all shots and requires use of additional lighting to get proper exposure. ... If I have the camera bracket exposure, the longer exposure is light enough which shows there is enough light for the camera to get a good shot, but it just isn't calculating things correctly. ...
    (alt.photography)