Astroscope + DSLR = Gallery! (1 Viewer)

[Tord]

Nice! Ours are yet to hatch, I guess it will happen this week and they will show up sometime end May.

 

[JGobeil]

Nice! Ours are yet to hatch, I guess it will happen this week and they will show up sometime end May.

Here, the Swallows have yet to arrive !

 

[Paul Corfield]

I'd seen no Blue Tits visiting the nest box with food for a day so I presumed they had all fledged. I opened the box this morning and there are 12 dead chicks, a real shame the nest failed so badly.

Paul.

 

[JGobeil]

Artic Goose

A nice catch yesterday, a Cackling Goose. It is a rare sighting where live and I saw it at Baie-du-Febvre, about 150km South-East from home. Total population is only 160,000 birds.

EM-1, SW80ED, 1.5X TN, ISO 400, 1/600 s., -3/10 EV, distance about 50-60 m.

 

[Paul Corfield]

Good catch. Just been reading up on this bird, interesting that the Cackling Goose wasn't made a full species until 2004.

Paul.

 

[Paul Corfield]

An unwanted guest raiding the peanuts. I don't mind too much as this squirrel only visits about once per week, plus nobody else is eating the peanuts at the moment.

SW80ED cropped about 50%.

Paul.

 

[JGobeil]

An unwanted guest raiding the peanuts. I don't mind too much as this squirrel only visits about once per week, plus nobody else is eating the peanuts at the moment.

SW80ED cropped about 50%.

Paul.

Nice photo. I've had problems with a black one that has been nesting close by for a few years. I had to resort to Squirrell-proof feeders.

 

[FineArt]

Here is a view with a Nikon 85mm lens.

Then 100% crop from a 1200 dob. Same spot with the same D600.

Discussion:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=89731.0

There is a lot of FUD around mirror lenses. The biggest problem is the size of it.

 

[JGobeil]

Here is a view with a Nikon 85mm lens.

Then 100% crop from a 1200 dob. Same spot with the same D600.

Discussion:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=89731.0

There is a lot of FUD around mirror lenses. The biggest problems is the size of it.

Humm... I downloaded the file and the biggest problems seem to me as an extreme lack of contrast and a very shallow DOF, considering the distance.

I played with it in LR for a couple minutes and it is possible to bring it back reasonably well. Processed photo attached; it is probably possible to do somewhat better with more care.

Here are my settings in LR:

Exposure: -0.50
Contrast: +60
Highlights: 0
Shadows: -60
Whites: -60
Blacks: -60
Clarity: +80
Vibrance: +30
Sharpening Amount: +50
Sharpening Radius: +2.0

This what I call extreme post processing ! IMO, considering the distance, this remains an interesting photo.

Regards
Jules

 

[FineArt]

DxO seems to do the best job with little effort.

This is the kind of FL you need for small animals like birds, if you can track them.

 

[DanC.Licks]

Well, while we are at it and since it is already a jpg, I just worked it over a little in ACDSee Pro.B

 

[FineArt]

Well, while we are at it and since it is already a jpg, I just worked it over a little in ACDSee Pro.B
View attachment 496239

Nice choice of color, might be a hair green. Mine is a bit pale, JGobiel's is a bit blue. If you look at the time of day, it was well into the golden light.Nikon's viewNX pulled out the temp at about 4444 from these shots. They know their camera output better than 3rd party software. DxO came up with a different "camera" temp which was more mid day white.

 

[DanC.Licks]

So much depends on the monitor. I have a very nice IPS display (HP ZR24w) that has been calibrated with an Eye One, and my wife has a Samsung Tn type, also calibrated with the same device/software. I can do a picture on mine that knocks your socks off, and then go down and look at it on hers and think holy crap, who processed THAT picture?!

The color temp numbers are not really comparable from won program to another, that is, 4444 in NX2 is not going to be the same as 4444 in LR on in DxO.

 

[FineArt]

Temp is a very basic scientific measurement. If it does not mean a specific thing to different software, then the whole color calibration is a sham. I cant buy that. I have a roughly adobe RGB monitor as calibrated with a datacolor spyder.

 

[FineArt]

I had a look at that particular shot, View NX says the camera recorded 4537 as the temp. We can agree the usefulness of that is debatable. If however we go through a color managed process, then save to a standard gamut, another color calibrated system that sees that gamut should pick up the same colors. If that does not happen something is seriously wrong.

 

[FineArt]

Somebody else posted a shot of the same hard, the same day, on the weather network.
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/photos/view/beautiful-weather/waterton-elk-herd/18998594

 

[JGobeil]

Nice choice of color, might be a hair green. Mine is a bit pale, JGobiel's is a bit blue. If you look at the time of day, it was well into the golden light.Nikon's viewNX pulled out the temp at about 4444 from these shots. They know their camera output better than 3rd party software. DxO came up with a different "camera" temp which was more mid day white.

As I see it, both FineArt's photos are indeed quite pale and Dan has improved on mine.

As I wrote, I only took a few moments to process the photo in LR and I made no adjustment to color temperature. Dell U2412M monitor calibrated with X-Rite i1 Display Pro.

The problems I see are that the extreme lack of contrast kills a good portion of the highlights that cannot be brought back and the DOF is extremely shallow.

 

[DanC.Licks]

I agree that the lack of contrast is a problem, but that is typical of reflector terrestrial shots, whether they are Dobs or Maks or whatever.

 

[JGobeil]

I agree that the lack of contrast is a problem, but that is typical of reflector terrestrial shots, whether they are Dobs or Maks or whatever.

It is the first time I process a photo with such a lack of contrast. I was under the impression that it was possible to recuperate it without problems but I quickly realized that the highlights were affected and that part of it was lost for good.

I was also surprised by the lack of DOF. I don't think it is more than 30 cm at that distance. Try to imagine how shallow it must be at 10 meters or so.

This is unfortunate because I was quite impressed by the details in the photo, considering the distance, which must be at least 100 m.

 

[Paul Corfield]

1200mm is easy on a decent 600mm refractor, plus with good baffling you wouldn't lose contrast and you would have better detail. I guess mirror based scopes are fun to experiment with if you already have one but for daytime use you can't beat a good refractor.

Paul.