Photography Nuts & Bolts

[PanBiker]

A selection shot on automatic, full resolution. Batch processed to reduce the size for the site.

[Big Kev]

Even better stuff, very nice.

[PostmanPete]

Makes me want to get one...!

If there was no Mrs PostmanPete I would have a house full of cameras (and binoculars)

[Big Kev]

Mrs Big Kev loves her binoculars, we have a good view over the top of Foulridge to Pendle Hill.

[PanBiker]

I registered last week for a free photography course over three sessions for photographing the Milky Way. It's run by a professional photographer Kristine Rose who is over in Canada. She runs the sessions live on Tuesday evenings at 19.00 her time which unfortunately for us is a 12 midnight start. I did the first session live but not last nights. She puts the sessions up on her Facebook site for the course. During the live sessions you can post questions and she answers the popular ones. The comments are all shown on the replay video's. I like her style of presentation as she explains the logic behind the why and wherefores of astro photography the kit required and why you need associated settings for your particular camera etc. No fancy gear beyond a typical DSLR with stock lens and a tripod. My EOS600D is fine and its 18mm - 55mm standard lens perfectly adequate for the job.

I have selected the Announcement section on the Facebook link as this is where the individual sessions can be retrieved and viewed.

Your First Milky Way Photograph - Kristine Rose

The first session featured a selection of her work but the main thrust of the presentation was how to find the Milky Way. If you don't know where to point your camera in the first place it's a bit pointless having a go! Do you know where to look?

She recommends an application called Stellarium that is a free download. You can also get it as and app for your phone. It shows the constellations and major star systems and where and when you can find the Milky Way in the southern hemisphere. The phone app is GPS/compass driven so it follows the night sky as you scan it with your phone. It also has a red night vision mode so that you can use it without reducing your natural night vision.

This is the Stellarium site where you can get the computer or phone version of the software. I think from comments the Android version is better than the Apple one as I don't think the Apple version does live tracking.

Stellarium Astronomy Software

Last night session was all about the camera settings that you need to photograph the Milky Way successfully. Well explained and easy to grasp why you need each setting for shutter, aperture and ISO. One or two light bulb moments for me while watching the replay. She has set homework now to go out and try the basic settings and refine them to suit your individual camera setup. Once you have them optimised for your particular camera combination of sensor type and lens they will remain constant for Milky Way photography. All good stuff, just need to find some proper dark sky now with no cloud cover and no moon which are the perfect conditions.

[Big Kev]

That sounds interesting Ian, does it involve multiple images and then stacking them in a bit of software?
I've seen results with a motorised tracker that sits on your tripod, I think it uses GPS to move the camera to keep it in line with whatever stars you're tracking.

[PanBiker]

No Kev, Kristine gives a chart with the settings for single shot for shutter, aperture and ISO based on the focal length of lens used and the size and type of sensor in the camera. She first put up a spreadsheet with all the popular DSLR cameras by make that were suitable with standard lenses. The second spreadsheet covers the settings for different focal length lenses in relation to max shutter, aperture and ISO. The spreadsheets are sent out to everyone who registers for the course. Unfortunately they are read only and cant be downloaded or I would put them on here. You may be able to find them on the Facebook site for the course though.

I can of course check your kit against the information given if you let me know what you use.

[Big Kev]

Not sure if my kit will still be listed as they don't make it anymore but here goes

Olympus E30
Olympus Zuiko Digital 11-22mm
Olympus Zuiko Digital 75-300mm
Sigma 28-70mm
Sigma 30mm f2.4
I have an Olympus 2x converter as well, although doubling the focal length of any of the lenses it does cut the aperture setting in half

[PanBiker]

Your E30 looks compatible. Here are the relevant bits from the PDF

Olympus Camera Compatibility.JPG

The camera chart uses a traffic light system Green OK, amber maybe, Red no go.

Focal Length-Sensor.JPG

Chart for determining maximum shutter speed from focal length of lens and sensor type

500 Rule.JPG

Ap-Shut-ISO.JPG

500 rule to determine aperture and ISO from maximum shutter speed.

These setting are camera specific and should allow enough light to the sensor but not create blurring from star trails.

I managed to open the HTML read only spreadsheet in Adobe and it let me download it:

Day 2 Your First Milky Way Photo PDF - Kristine Rose Photography.pdf

This has all the info discussed in depth during the second presentation session.

It's worth registering for the information that she sends you, loads of in depth explanatory stuff. If you registered you could watch the presentations at your leisure.

[Tizer]

Ian, Mrs Tiz subscribes to Popular Astronomy magazine and I think you'd find it very interesting: PopAstro

[PanBiker]

Thanks Peter but that would just open up a whole new can of worms. I'm interested enough to find out how to find the Milky Way and how to photograph it, still on a learning curve with that at the moment. Not enough dark sky from home so it would only produce more angst I reckon.

[Big Kev]

Thanks Ian I'll have a read of that

[Stanley]

I never saw the Milky Way until I went to Australia and got out into the Outback. I can still remember how beautiful it was.

[Big Kev]

Local photographer Aiden Wellock has posted some great images, of the milky way, over the Ribblehead Viaduct on his Facebook page Northern Images Photography.

[PanBiker]

Aiden takes some fantastic photo's, he chases aurora also, you need dedication to pursue that to best advantage.

[Tizer]

I need a bit of advice on handling photos on a smartphone. I now have a Moto G31 and I've got to grips with the camera. I thought I'd use it to take pics now and then to put on OG but even with the camera set to the lowest resolution the photos are about 2MB in size. I need to resize them to about 800x600 pixels for OG....but I can't find anything in the phone's apps or manual about resizing images/photos. I've searched the web and found nothing other than apps to install. I tried a few and they mug me with adverts so I ditched them. But surely a smartphone should be able to resize images stored on it? All advice welcome - but no hurry, I'm logging out now and will look in again tomorrow.

[PanBiker]

i use Irfanview but I transfer any photos to the PC before using it's batch processing facilities. You can set multiple images in the source and resize by size or resolution and it applies to all in the batch which are then saved to a separate destination of choice. Don't know if you can get it as an app for Android. I generally use Google Drive for transferring to the PC as it is a standard app on the phone. Irfanview is freeware but I dont know if there is a Linux version.

Just checked and there are only win 32 and 64 bit versions. It is available as an app but only for Windows based phones.

Can you run a Windows emulator on your platform? I wonder if you could get it to run that way?

It's a brilliant graphics processor.

Irfanview

[Stanley]

Peter, If I have images on the phone I want to modify I send them to the daughters on Whatsapp and then lift them off into Gimp from where I can do anything I want with them.

[Tizer]

Thanks for the responses. I've no problem with being able to transfer images from the phone to my PC and resize them In Gthumb but I'm trying to find how to do it directly on the phone when I'm away from my PC. I'm gobsmacked to find that these wonders of modern technology (it has three cameras on it) can't do something as simple as reducing the size of a JPG image. It seems to be phones in general, not just my G31. I've done numerous google searches and all I get is advice on how to set the image size before taking a photo and suggestions for apps to download (which so far have either not worked or bomb me with ads). I smell a cunning wheeze here - do the phonemakers not provide image resizing because they users to overload their phone with big image files and have to buy a new one?

You're right about IrfanView, Ian. I used it all the time back in my Windows days. A very good (and free!) piece of software which I always recommended to others.

A final thought. Perhaps everyone keeps their phone images on a cloud service now and uses editing software provided by that?

[Big Kev]

The quickest way I have found is to send the image to myself using Messenger or WhatsApp. Both will compress the image and can be downloaded back to the phone. Alternatively there are several free 'image resizer' apps in the Google Play Store.

[Tizer]

Thanks Kev. The resizer apps I've tried from Playstore were all bombing me with ads. I guess I'll just carry on sending the photos to myself via Gmail, or USB if I'm next to the PC.

[Stanley]

Thanks to a chance remark by a friend of mine in California who is a very good photographer, I discovered the delights of the 'Auto' command in the Gimp colour menu. Totally brilliant..... Thanks Larry!

[Tizer]

I suppose this was bound to happen sometime. I still use my Canon Powershot G11 and SX610 in preference to my smartphone camera...
`Digital cameras back in fashion after online revival' LINK

[PanBiker]

Lots of photos of last nights sunset, here's mine. Taken on full auto with the Canon DSLR and about a minute late!

[Tizer]

That's an impressive sunset, Ian! We've had a few strange sunsets over the last couple of weeks. Last night it was an unusual colour, more of a muddy or sandy red, rather like the colour of our local clay soil.