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Astro photography for beginners

by gerard.prins on Sep 12, 2018 in Astrophotography, Practical guide • Leave a comment »
The Milky Way - Nikon D710The Milky Way - Nikon D7100, 12-24mm f/4G Tokina @ 12mm, ISO 1600, f/4, 15 s.0, 12-24mm f/4G Tokina, ISO 1600, f/4, 15 s.
The Milky Way - Nikon D7100, 12-24mm f/4G Tokina @ 12mm, ISO 1600, f/4, 15 s.

Introduction

Astrophotography is a discipline dedicated to photographing the night sky in all its splendor.
For this exercise to be successful, there are a series of environmental conditions, equipment demands and photographic operational- plus post-production techniques that we will explore in broad lines in in this article.
Thus, people who are starting out in the discipline can have a general idea on how to achieve satisfying results and, in addition, can prepare properly for a night excursion taking the necessary precautions for their greater protection and comfort.

Environment

In Chile we are still fortunate enough to find fairly dark locations relatively close to the big cities, an essential condition for astrophotography.
Although there are many people in other latitudes whom have to cope with far worse conditions than ours, nothing beats a location with low light pollution to capture outstanding sky images.
In Santiago we can access relatively dark skies in the Cajón de Maipo, at distances between 90 (San José de Maipo) and 180 km (El Yeso Reservoir Lake), respectively, while those traveling to places like Vicuña – in the Elqui Valley – or better yet, to San Pedro de Atacama, can still find clear skies with very low levels of light pollution.
It is no coincidence that Chile’s second to fourth regions concentrate a large number of astronomical observatories, such as Tololo, Paranal, ALMA and E-ELT, among others.
The ideal nights are clear and moonless, while the best locations are as high up as possible.
My locations in the Cajón de Maipo are all well over 2.000 meters, above the flying dust and as far away as possible from major potential sources of light pollution.

Light pollution. Nikon D7100, 12-24mm f/4G Tokina @ 12mm. ISO 1600, f/4, 10 s.
Light pollution. Nikon D7100, 12-24mm f/4G Tokina @ 12mm. ISO 1600, f/4, 10 s.

Full story »

Tags: adobe af affordable astro camera canon chile d7100 d7K series d7k deep sky stacker download dslr english exposure focus focus mode free google html iso jpg lens location long exposure manual focus ml-l3 nef nikon photography photoshop professional raw release remote control search self-timer settings software still terms tiff tripod wide angle zoom

Upgrade or deal-breaker? Seven reasons not to buy the Nikon D7500 and get a D7200 instead

by gerard.prins on Feb 15, 2018 in Nikon Cameras, NikoNews, Review • Leave a comment »
Upgrade or deal-breaker? Seven reasons not to buy the Nikon D7500 and get a D7200 instead

For little under a decade, the Nikon D90/D7K series has been the jumping point for those who were looking to move into the major leagues.
Or for those looking to move down and still get a DSLR with pro-akin performance at an affordable price.
Today, the price gap between the prosumer D7K series and the semi-pro Nikon D500 is in the order of 50% (USD 600) or more, while the differences in performance and operability are probably only appreciable to those of us who really put a camera through its paces.

With the launch of the D7500, Nikon has changed all that.
The marketing department, with its long-standing track record of navel staring, decided that the D7200 is too good to be true (which it is), too much akin to the D500, and ought to be stripped down.
Remember that, while the D500 is undoubtedly an outstanding camera, the company disappointed many of its fans taking close to 9 years for the D500 to replace the venerable D300, while advancing decidedly with the D7K series.
Thus placing a serious incentive on acquiring one of these, rather than shelling out for more expensive, sometimes handicapped, baby FX models such as the D600.

Although the D500 outshines the D7200 with a more sophisticated AF system (Multi-CAM 20K), inherited from the D5, a better processing engine (Expeed 5 vs. 4), a far better buffer, and maybe a slightly more thorough build, the much cheaper camera has little else to envy its bigger sister. 
Least of all its odd double card set-up with one XQD- and one SDHC slot.

Full story »

Tags: 2012 af af51 affordable ai ai-ais ai-s alternatives battery battery-pack buffer camera competition d5 d500 d5k series d7100 d7200 d7500 d7K series d7k d90 downgrade dslr dual card slot dx dxo mark entry level expeed focus fx iso launch magnesium alloy manual focus mf monocoque design multi-cam nfc nikkor nikon php plastic-build resolution sony still strip-down upgrade video wifi xqd

Your telescope as a super-tele lens: methods, tools, pros & cons of eyepiece projection and prime focus astrophotography

by gerard.prins on Jan 30, 2018 in Accessories for Nikon, User Experiences, Astrophotography, Telescope • Leave a comment »
Prime Focus - Nikon D40 camera, attached to a DIY telescope focuser with a T-ring and T-adapter for 1,25" telescope eyepiece holder
D40 camera with T-ring, T-adapter mounted on focuser

Many a telescope owner, after gazing at the sky for a while, wants more; wants to share what she or he is seeing.
There are several ways to achieve this. The most obvious is shooting through the telescope eyepiece with a small camera or cell phone. Since this is very difficult to do hand-held, you can find many economical cellphone adapters on the web (± USD 20).
The other alternative is using the telescope as if it were a long fixed-focal, fixed-aperture lens, mounting a DSLR or mirrorless (CSC) camera sans lens on the telescope focuser.
In this article we explore the different alternatives, tools, pros & cons of both methods.

Eyepiece projection

The advantage of shooting through the eyepiece, so-called eyepiece projection, is that its magnification allows you to get a high enlargement on sky objects.
The disadvantage is that a cell-phone or a point-and-shoot are not great cameras and, moreover, that image quality heavily depends on the optical quality of one’s eyepieces.
If you still use the eyepieces that came bundled with your telescope, you may want to upgrade at least one before venturing into eyepiece projection. Otherwise you are most likely going to get disappointed.
That said, in my research for this article I came across a DSLR adapter for eyepiece projection (USD 150), which could possibly overcome the low IQ issues of cell-phones and point-and-shoot cameras.
However, I have no idea how well it works. Check it out for yourself clicking here. 

Full story »

Tags: alternatives astro astrotrac barn-door mount building plan cable camera canon celestron cell-phone collimation comment comparison d7100 digital digital dictionary dobsonian dslr economical exposure eyepiece eyepiece-camera f-mount focus focuser fuji google heavy-duty home-built html iso iso performance lens maksutov mirrorless newtonian nikkor nikon ocular olympus panasonic pentax photography php pictures problem raw resolution review schmidt-cassegrain search self-timer sigma sony standard star-adventurer starguider still super-tele super-telelens tele telelens telescope terms test tokina tripod upgrade

DIY heavy duty woodshop Crayford-type focuser with building plans

by gerard.prins on Jul 20, 2016 in Astrophotography, Telescope, Practical guide • Leave a comment »
Close up of a wood and PVC do-it-yourself Crayford focuser with 25mm Celestron X-Cel LX eyepiece, mounted on a 6" Dobsonian telescope
DIY Crayford focuser with 25mm Celestron X-Cel LX eyepiece on a 6" Dobsonian telescope

The Crayford telescope focuser design – developed in 1971 by John Wall and named after the Crayford Manor House astronomical society – has a number of important advantages over rack-and-pinion and can be home built out of wood by almost anybody with a bit of patience and the right tools at hand.
Although some prefer to build the design in metal, with the associated advantages, that approach requires specialized metal working tools, generally out of scope for most home builders.
The 2” woodshop design presented here is scalable, has proven to be sturdy, reliable and, most importantly, when built to tight enough tolerances, allows for very precise focusing, even under heavy loads.
I designed this focuser specifically to carry the weight of a Nikon D7100 camera (± 800 gr) on prime focus, which is considerably heavier than even the largest eyepieces. So far, it is holding up admirably.

Even though building this design is probably possible utilizing hand tools only, for tight tolerances the following specialty tools are recommended:
Electrical table saw and/or
Miter saw: electrical table top and/or manual
Jigsaw
Belt sander (80 grit belt)
Vertical drill stand
Drill press vice
Glue clamps
Hole saw, 54mm (2 1/8”)
Wood drill bits: 1mm, 3mm, 4/4.5mm, 5/5.5mm and 8mm
Thread tapping set

Full story »

Tags: back-up building plan camera camera support collimation collimation cap comment construction crayford crayford-type d7100 diy do-it-yourself dobsonian eyepiece focus focuser focuser tube heavy-duty new nikon optical alignment pvc still telescope v1 wood woodshop

Is my camera motorized or motor-less, compatible with NAI, AI, AI-S, AI-P, AF-D, AF-I, AF-S lenses and GPS or not? Answers.

by gerard.prins on Oct 25, 2014 in Nikon Mount Lenses, Nikon Cameras, GPS & Geo-tagging • Leave a comment »

Quite a few people end up here to try to get answers to their million-dollar questions, such as: “Is my D50 motorized or not?”, “Can my D100 focus and meter with manual focus lenses?”, “Is my D3100 geo-tagging (GPS) capable?”, and so on.
I have concocted a compatibility table that pretends to answer these questions all at once. One-stop shopping to solve your Nikon DSLR doubts, so to say.
It is so large that it does not fit my standard blog page, which is why I’m providing the table both in HTML and PDF.
Because to err is human and to forgive divine, I would greatly appreciate you dropping me a line if you find any errors.
Thanks!

For the HTML version click here, for the PDF version click here.
Note that cameras are ordered chronologically by launch date.

Is my camera motorized or motor-less, compatible with NAI, AI, AI-S, AI-P, AF-D, AF-I, AF-S lenses and GPS or not? Answers.


Tags: af af-d af-i af-s afs ai ai-ais ai-p ai-s auto focus camera camera features camera functions comparison chart compatibility compatibility chart d-type d100 d50 dslr focus g-type geo-tagging gps html launch lens manual focus mf motor-less motorized nai nikkor nikon non ai series e standard

The Nikon F-mount. Manual focus NAI, AI, AI-S, AI-P, Series E and auto-focus AF-D, AF-I, AF-S, D- and G-Type lenses. A compatibility inventory

by gerard.prins on Oct 20, 2014 in Nikon Mount Lenses, Nikon Cameras • Leave a comment »
The Nikon F-mount. Manual focus NAI, AI, AI-S, AI-P, Series E and auto-focus AF-D, AF-I, AF-S, D- and G-Type lenses. A compatibility inventory

I’m writing this post nearly 5 years after Can I use Nikkor AI and AI-S manual focus lenses on my Nikon DSLR?, because the interest of Nikonians for legacy lenses is undeniable, while my research into the topic has added some – hopefully worthwhile – facts.
At the same time, the value of manual focus NAI and AI(S) lenses is clearly on the rise, which is good for everyone who has a few of grannies F-lenses lying around, either for proper use or sale.

The Nikon F-Mount was launched with the Nikon F camera in 1959 and has remained virtually unchanged since, making it the only camera mount still in production almost 6 decades after its introduction.
The F-mount can be found in five versions: F, AI, AI-S, AF and Non-MF (Fig. 1).
The latter made its debut in 1987 on the F-401 (N4004), is used on the D40 to D100, D3000 and D5000 series and essentially a downgrade back to the original F-Mount, because it lacks the meter coupling lever to interface with non-cpu lenses. This is why none of these cameras exposure meter with MF lenses.

Fig. 1. 55 Years of major F-Mount modifications
Fig. 1. 55 Years of major F-Mount modifications

The F-mount has only seen two major updates.
The first from the original Auto-Nikkor to Auto-Indexing (AI), with the addition of the meter coupling lever – introduced on the Nikon F2 Photomic A in March 1977 – and the second from AI-S to AF, with the launch of Nikon’s first flagship auto-focus camera, the F3-AF, in April 1983, followed by the popular Nikon F-501 (N2020), two years later.

Where the manual focus system update from F-Auto to AI was basically oriented at making existing technology (aperture indexing) more user friendly, the update to AF may be considered break-through.
With it, Nikon replaces mechanical camera-lens coupling with a cpu-driven, electronic camera-lens interface, allowing for many posterior innovations such as aperture control from the camera body, electronic range finding, distance metering (with D and G-type lenses), EXIF data recording, AF-S, VR, iTTL flash, etc.

Full story »

Tags: 10 mm 2012 af af-d af-i af-s affordable afs ai ai-ais ai-p ai-s auto focus camera camera functions canon color comparison compatibility compatibility chart construction d-type d100 d200 d5 d50 d5000 series d5k series d60 d7500 d7K series d7k d80 d90 df digital digital dictionary diy downgrade download dslr dx economical ed entry level exposure f-mount f-series f3 f4 fe flash focus g-type gps housing html launch lens manual focus mf motor-less motorized nai new nikkor nikon non ai photography php products review search serial series e service standard still tele third party tokina update upgrade vr

Why DxO Mark's lens “tests” are utter nonsense

by gerard.prins on Oct 4, 2014 in Nikon Mount Lenses, Review • Leave a comment »
Why DxO Mark's lens “tests” are utter nonsense

While I give them considerable credit for their thorough camera sensor testing and ranking, those of us who look to DxO Mark to help us decide which lenses are the “best” for our particular cameras have been lead astray for too long, already.
One particular testing item that has always called my attention, but had never bothered to research – until now – was the infamous DxO Mark “Best at” Score, which, without exception, suggests that lenses ought to be shot wide-open for best performance.

Shooting lenses wide open might be interesting in certain situations, but in general does not make much sense, because they are typically at their optical best at around two stops down from their maximum aperture.
It also called my attention that lenses we all know to be average keep picking up DxO score on newer, higher resolution and/or full-frame cameras, while some legendary ones keep getting below average scores, independent of the camera they are “tested” on.

As it turns out, and I quote:
“DxO Mark Score is measured for low-light conditions: 150 lux and 1/60s exposure time. Such conditions correspond to a correctly lit living room (with no daylight).
It is a difficult, but rather typical photographic use case.”

Full story »

Tags: camera dxo mark exposure flickr fx iso lens nikon resolution test
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Articles

  • Astro photography for beginners
  • Upgrade or deal-breaker? Seven reasons not to buy the Nikon D7500 and get a D7200 instead
  • Your telescope as a super-tele lens: methods, tools, pros & cons of eyepiece projection and prime focus astrophotography
  • DIY heavy duty woodshop Crayford-type focuser with building plans
  • Is my camera motorized or motor-less, compatible with NAI, AI, AI-S, AI-P, AF-D, AF-I, AF-S lenses and GPS or not? Answers.
  • The Nikon F-mount. Manual focus NAI, AI, AI-S, AI-P, Series E and auto-focus AF-D, AF-I, AF-S, D- and G-Type lenses. A compatibility inventory
  • Why DxO Mark's lens “tests” are utter nonsense
  • Got a new camera? Problems with Photoshop or Camera RAW? Check out Nikon Capture NX-D. FREE!
  • Autofocus reloaded. AF-S, AF-C, AF-A, AF-F. 11, 39 and 51 point AF systems. Dynamic area AF, focus areas and 3D
  • When and how to use fill-in flash, high speed sync and slow sync flash
  • Adobe adds support for the Nikon Df, D610, D5300, D4S, D3300 and D810 in ACR 8.x (CS6 and CC ONLY)
  • Compatibility chart for Nikon DSLR and Adobe Camera RAW & DNG Converter (Updated 2016-06-12)
  • 25-02-2014: Nikon launches the top-of-the-line 16.2 Mp. D4S
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  • The Quick & Dirty Focus Test
  • Back Focus, Front Focus or Spot-on? Do the Domino Test
  • October 17, 2013. Nikon replace the D5200 with the D5300
  • October 8, 2013. Nikon launches the D610 to replace the 13 month-old D600
  • Nikon's numbers are dropping. Why?
  • Geotagging test of the Nikon D7100 and the Promote GPS N-90
  • How the DNG Converter makes your RAW files compatible with any version of ACR
  • Some very useful tips for shooting Video with your DSLR
  • Nikon announces to have produced the 80 millionth Nikkor
  • Adobe surveys potential CC customers. Mostly address the right issues, except the single most essential.
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  • Adobe adds support for the D5200 in ACR 7.3 and D7100 in 7.4 (CS6 Only)
  • Promote GPS 10-pin CA10 to D90-type CA90 connector conversion.
  • The D5200: Nikon’s most unnecessary launch ever.
  • Nikon's Premium Pricing and Pixel Overkill: A New Dead End Street?
  • Adobe adds support for the Nikon D600 in ACR 7.2 (CS6 only).
  • Adobe adds support for the D3200 in ACR 7.1 (CS6 only). D600 not yet supported.
  • Nikon D600 vs. D800. For what it offers, the D600 should cost $500 less.
  • EN-EL15 battery recall
  • To Goog Almighty: how do I get my search traffic back?
  • Adobe publishes Camera RAW and DNG Converter 6.7 final releases. The last for CS5.
  • Nikon launches the long overdue AF-S 28 mm f/1.8G Nikkor
  • Nikon launches the D3200, the WU-1a wireless mobile adapter and the 28mm f/1.8G prime lens
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  • January 2012. Nikon launches the D4. Time for a review of its product strategy.
  • That's it for Nikon in 2011
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  • September 21, 2011. Nikon launches Nikon One: 2 mirror-less cameras, 4 lenses, and a host of accessories.
  • August 24, 2011. Nikon may finally give us the launches we have been waiting for. (Edited) Well, I guess not.
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  • Nikon launches the D5100 and the ME-1 stereo microphone for digital SLR
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  • Cool stuff III. The Superclamp: don't leave home without one (or two)
  • Adobe launches Camera RAW (CS5 ONLY) and DNG converter 6.3 RC. Support for the Nikon D7000 and D3100, among others.
  • Missed the D7000 launch, but went to Amsterdam, played the tourist, met my grandson and “tested” the D7000, Pentax 645D at Photokina
  • Nikon launch their own on-line store in the US. Unfortunately, it's outrageously expensive.
  • Nikon & NASA. Almost 40 years together in space.
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  • Cool Stuff I: GoPro HERO wearable, waterproof 1080p HD digital video and still “sports” camera
  • The rumors were not too far off: Nikon launch the D3100 with the 18-55 mm f/3.5-5.6G VR.
  • Nikon View: could it get any worse? A crash test review of View NX2.
  • The rumors are no longer rumors. Nikon launch their new Coolpixes S1100 Pj and S5100.
  • NEW! Nikon View NX 2 now available for download.
  • Adobe Labs publishes the Camera RAW ACR 6.2 release candidate (CS5 Only) and DNG Converter v.6.2.
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  • Shot befittingly with a Nikon: my grandson
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  • Swamped in comment Spam
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  • The earthquake in Chile and the power of photography.
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  • Which is the best RAW converter: Camera RAW, Nikon View, Capture or Phase One Capture One?
  • Adobe Camera RAW 5.5 Release Candidate (Free, CS4 ONLY). Support for the Nikon D300S and D3000
  • New Nikon camera? Photoshop or Camera RAW Trouble? Check out Nikon View NX! (Updated)
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  • Nikon D300, out of stock or discounted in stores in the US, France and Sweden. D40 and D80 discontinued in Europe.
  • Adobe now officially WORSE than MS. Sell by NOT doing, rather than doing.
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  • Review: Nikon D40 + AF-S DX 18-55 mm. f/3.5-5.6GII ED kit. Maybe the best Nikon ever?
  • My Nikon cameras, the ones to come and why.
  • Review: 18-200 mm. f/3.5-6.3D IF DC Sigma. You can't have it All.
  • Review: APO 100-300mm f/4D EX HSM Sigma. Sharpness on a Shoestring
  • Review: AT-X PRO 12-24mm f/4G DX Tokina. Big Bang for your Buck
  • Dictionary of (digital) photography terms and abbreviations

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