Der Moon ta' night

[67Dart273]

Had a nice big moon in Coeur d Alene tonight so I dug out the gear and took a few shots

Canon 7D
Old beat up Canon EF 300mm f2.8
Canon 2X Extender (teleconverter)
Tamron SP 1.4X teleconverter

For a combined "real" 840mm

and if you are one of those guys who likes to figure "crop camera equivalent" of 1344 mm

Here's a scaled down shot, and a full size crop. The lens was wide open at f2.8, and the converters brought the effective f stop down to f5.6 I used the 2 second timer to try and reduce vibration, as I didn't drag out the wireless trigger. I focused it manually using magnified live view, AF won't work at all with those two extenders stacked on!!

 

[OldmanRick]

Very nice. I only get looks like that thru the telescope. Don't have a camera to capture that quality, Thanks, Del

 

[goldfish65]

Thank you. I'm ashamed to say I did not notice the moon tonight.

 

[memike]

Had to save these pictures!! outstanding pictures, looks like there is life on the moon, look at all the lites on , THANK you so, sooo mutch for taking the time to do this and have the ability to pull this off.
You are a man of many tallent's.

 

[Dfnsmn34]

Way to go IDAHO! Thats reall good pics...was just looking at da moon...not quite full but better to look at...not as much glare.

COOL!

 

[SpikeWills69]

VERY NICE! I never could get a good shot of the moon, these are awesome.

 

[swifter]

yep isn't his creation wonderful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! thanks--Nutin' much happened here in Luchenbach tonight cept' there was the moon--Hondo Crouch poem --Luchenbach moon--Look it up !!!!!!! Steve

 

[swifter]

You-tube---luchenbach moon Texas-Hondo Crouch!!!!!! some one should post that here !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[4spdragtop]

Geez Del you got some serious camera stuff there!! Very cool pics, thanks for posting those pics!

 

[4spdragtop]

Is this the one??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Ht0RTeLKsmI

 

[mopardads67]

WOW!!!! Great pictures.Sometimes I think the moon looks like an exray from a mamogram

 

[67Dart273]

Thanks for all the comments. I didn't realize this would spark so much. I was getting tired, and my legs hurt, so I didn't spend that much time. I saw the moon, grabbed the gear, and setup in the street.

 

[j-miller]

Great close up shots of the moon. It feels like your ready to land on it.

 

[DFX 340 Duster]

Nice shots.

Got rid of all my camera stuff a few years back when my film SLR gave up the ghost. Bought a new Nikon back in July. Maybe I will try it out tonight if we have clear skies instead of the marine layer.

 

[67Dart273]

Got rid of all my camera stuff a few years back when my film SLR gave up the ghost. Bought a new Nikon back in July. Maybe I will try it out tonight if we have clear skies instead of the marine layer.

Getting rid of your old MAY have been a mistake. Before I got so shakey and arthritic, I used to have a LOT of fun playing with old lenses. I still have a few good ones including a Nikon 180mm 2.8, which I can adapt to my Canon,

A photo taken with the above lens, adapted to a Canon DSLR. This was probably when I still had the 350D body

and quite a few Tamron adaptall lenses which you can adapt to just about anything.

Tamron SP 17mm 3.5

A 4th of July fireworks shot taken with the above 17mm:

Tamron SP 90mm f2.5. Unfortunately this lens generates a "purple dot" when stopped down. It's a matter of the optics of film versus digital

Tamron SP 300mm 2.8

Tamron 300mm f5.6

Tamron SP 500mm f8

A shot taken with the above 500mm, a tricky lens to use. The focus ring is "geared" very high, and these mirror lenses often produce unwanted background effects which look like a bunch of bubble wrap in the background

Tamron SP 28-135 f4-4.5

Tamron SP 35-80mm f2.8-3.8, a VERY useful little lens

I took this shot of Marti, rest her little soul, with the above lens, with a desklight, no flash, using a Pentax K20

Tamron SP 35-210 f3.5-4.2, a heavy lens

Tamron SP 60-300mm f3.8-5.4, very highly rated, I have TWO. One I got from a thrift store with several others for EIGHT BUCKS

The "eight dollar deal"

http://forum.manualfocus.org/viewtopic.php?id=7987

and what I did with one of them, a cheap lens with Minolta MD mount, converted to Canon EF mount:

http://forum.manualfocus.org/viewtopic.php?id=7990

Tamron SP 70-210mm f3.5-4, an incredibly good macro lens especially when used with the matching 2x converter

Tamron SP 80-210 f2.8, a VERY heavy and large lens

A TRUE monster of a lens to handle, and VERY heavy is the SP 200-500mm f5.6

The matching 2x converter, a PITA to use, as you must remove the lens mount, attach the converter, and reattach the lens mount. I use it seldom

In the "non SP" lineup, I own a 28mm f2.5

A shot with the above 28mm

I don't remember if I have the 135mm, but I do have this 200mm f3.5

My very first Tamron Adaptall-2 lens, and the one which led down the dark road to destruction, an 70-210mm f3.8-4

I own a few more Adaptall-2, Adaptall, and Adapt-a-Matic lenses, many of them unremarkable, but one that is fun to play with is the Adapt-a-Matic 21mm f4.5

And one of my favorite manual lenses is one I modified to fit the Canon EF mount, a Canon FL 19mm

The conversion:

http://forum.manualfocus.org//viewtopic.php?id=16902

A sunset with this lens on my 40D

This is known as "having GAS" or Gear Acquisition Syndrome

This does not cover some of the bad, fair, and good "other" lenses I've got lying around such as this sunset taken with an Olympus 28mm adapted to my Canon with a cheap Asian import adapter ring:

These are two Minolta mount Sigma 600mm mirror lenses which I modified, one to Canon EF, the other to Pentax M42, with my Tamron SP 500 mm in the middle

This shot was made with my old Canon Xt/ 350D and a nearly free lens, a Mamiya screw mount 50mm 1.8

Another sunset with a manual lens, but I forgot to note which one I used!!! LOL

Some of my other poor attempts at photography. Unfortunately, I haven't kept this updated as I should, nor do I "get out" as much anymore

http://www.flickr.com/photos/18786943@N03/

 

[95teetee]

very nice pics- nice equipment lineup too:thumbup:

hope you don't mind if I add a few of my pics,,,

gophers always seemed to be the most available subjects when I worked in the oilpatch- I liked the way my reflection (not to mention the sun and clouds) was caught in this one's eye (cropped from a larger pic):

I wish I had some nice telescopic lenses like you have (always planned on adding more toys to the kit every now and then, but never did)

 

[67Dart273]

Those are some great shots. One thing I've NEVER got good at here is shooting bald eagles. They are a "difficult" color, and the time of year that they are here, the weather is often awful, plus my shakey hands and arthritis. Trying to pan them from a tripod is near impossible.

I'm finding it more and more difficult to put up with the cold weather to "go get" them.

 

[95teetee]

thanks 67- I had the same problem trying to get some pictures of ducks-as I would get close enough to 'shoot' them, they'd take off...so most of my pics ended up like this:

that snipe I posted was great- once I got his attention, he kept buzzing me, sorta like this:

made it easy to get some pictures of him lol

 

[67Dart273]

What are you using for body and lens?

 

[afbill]

HOLY CRAP!!! You took those pictures of the Moon yourself? That's freaking awesome!!!

 

[95teetee]

What are you using for body and lens?

those ones were my D40 with the 55-200 kit lens.

btw, a co-worker of mine just bought a Celestron telescope with camera provisions. Would love to get my hands on that...I've tried taking pictures of the moon, and got some not bad ones, but without the level of zoom required (like yours) they just don't have it.

 

[67Dart273]

HOLY CRAP!!! You took those pictures of the Moon yourself? That's freaking awesome!!!

Yup. I have way more money invested in gear than I care to admit, and MOST of that was bought on "deals" or used. My two Canon 7D bodies were both bought via the canon Loyalty program, for under 1200 each (refurbished). At the time, that was considerably cheaper than new ones

The 300mm f2.8 lens is an OLD beat up one that I got for a song. This was, and is, a VERY expensive lens. This one was built BEFORE the modern crop of DSLRs, and even back then was over 5 grand new. The guy who sold it TOLD me it was "broke" as "it didn't focus right" and I bought it for 400 bucks. Even now, one of these that works correctly would be worth 2 grand. BUT IT turns out that the 7D has an adjustment in the menu for lens focus, and I was able to CORRECT the problem in the camera menu!!! So even though the lens is "technically broken," it works for me. And um................yeeeeaaahhhh, that IS a worm drive clamp holding the lens hood on!!! The hood mechanism was broken and missing, so sawed some slots around the outer edge to make it more "bendable" and just put a huge worm drive clamp around the thing.

But in this case, I did have to manually focus, as stacking up the teleconverters (extenders) makes the AF non functional

The first is a Canon 2X Extender, and behind that is a Tamron SP 1.4, up against the camera. The current price on a Canon extender is over 450 bucks, but I bought mine used for about 1/4 of that. Even the Tamron SP extender costs over 200, I don't remember what I paid for mine.

The tripod is a nice Bogen, and I bought it used on Craigslist for 75 bucks. I did buy the head new, for about 80 I did not extend it very far in order to help keep it rigid, so had to get on my knees to get the shots

 

[afbill]

Damn!! You got a telescope on that bad boy. When I take a picture of something it looks like, ....well....it looks like I took a picture of it. My dad was a photog years ago and he just got a bunch of equipment from my grandfather. We'll see what he can do with it.

 

[67Dart273]

Damn!! You got a telescope on that bad boy. When I take a picture of something it looks like, ....well....it looks like I took a picture of it. My dad was a photog years ago and he just got a bunch of equipment from my grandfather. We'll see what he can do with it.

Post back with what you have. There is sort of a "mini hobby" amounst some of us using old vintage lenses on DSLR cameras

Canon is VERY adaptable, as it has a large mount, and a "fairly" short what is called "register," that is, the distance from the film/ sensor to the lens mount.

For example, you cannot adapt very much to a Nikon SLR/ DSLR, as it is one of the longer register bodies.

But I can buy inexpensive adapters for Olympus OM, Contax/ Yashica, Pentax, both bayonet and so called "M42" screw mount, and a couple of others.

What, for example I can NOT adapt is Minolta MD (the old manual focus, not the newer Maxum stuff) nor can I use Konica, or the old style Canon what is called FL/ FD. If you read my post above, I have modified some of them, including the Canon FL lenses

But the new crop of cameras --the ones with removable lenses and no viewfinder, have INCREDIBLY short registers and have opened up whole new possiblilities for adaption of the Minolta and other "short" register lenses.

One example of this is the Sony NEX series, but there are others.

Pentax bodies lie in between Nikon and Canon, that is, they are slightly shorter, but using even M42 screw mount is a PITA because of the design of the adapter, not quick to change. But one advantage of Pentax bodies, is that the DSLR bodies retain the MECHANICAL lens stop down system used by ANY older Pentax type manual lens. This means that they work EXACTLY like the old film cameras---the lens auto stops down, and you have to manually focus.

I took that photo of my now departed cat with a Pentax, with a Tamron lens, which can be natively adapted (Adaptall-2 mount) directly to the Pentax giving it normal functionality.

If you want to SELL some of these old lenses, they have dramatically increased in price the last few years. This is because of the modern DSLRs (like my 7D) which can take high quality HD (1080P) movies. What you need for these is a high quality, fast, easily focuses MANUALLY focused lens. So some of the older, better lenses have gone UP, not down.

These get to be a real Franken--- but the reason some (even pros) use them is that even after all the dress-up, they are INCREDIBLY cheaper than a "pro" level video cam. National Geographic and others use them, and some TV shows are shot with them!!!!

That's right!! Under all that crap is a Canon DSLR!!!

http://www.ozdox.org/news/canon-eos-5d-mkii-the-dslr-as-video-camera-is-it-a-revolution-or-what/

 

[Rice Nuker]

WOW!

Very great, folks.

My I phone is all I got. Sad in comparison: