Stocking up

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Viewing 7 posts - 31 through 37 (of 37 total)
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  • #43946
    lokisbong
    Participant

    10mm would be almost half the sky I bet. lol The main thing that bummed me out was I tried to get all of the constellation Orion with no trails and it’s not gonna happen with the 50mm.
    As to Orionids tinkering I would do that to a simple lens from the thrift store if I could find Canon ef or efs lens’ on the cheap.

    10.5 is all the sky and some ground! Check upper left corner!

    Ooooof.I thought my 18-55 could feel wide but that is just wild.

    #43947
    Farktographer
    Participant

    Oh-so-excited for the lens to come in now that you posted this, NBD. If I didn’t have exams coming up, I’d be planning a trip just so I could shoot some nature and startrails with it.

    #43948
    Plamadude30k
    Participant

    Okay, here’s an example of what I mean when I say my 50mm f/1.8 has crap optics:

    This is only slightly cropped from full (just trimmed the corners a bit). You can clearly see coma in the bright stars. I did a whole series going from f/1.8 to f/3.5, and it actually gets okay by f/2.2, and is even fairly decent by f/2.8. You can see this series here:
    https://picasaweb.google.com/Darth.Java/Random?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCKfRyKjBpuzgVg&feat=directlink

    For pretty much anything without bright point sources that are in focus, though, it’s good. I used it extensively on my halloween Waikiki photowalk, and I enjoyed it, so it has it’s uses. I guess I just got one of the bad ones? I imagine it happens.

    #43949
    sleeping
    Participant

    I guess I just got one of the bad ones? I imagine it happens.

    I think that’s fairly typical, actually – the old 50/1.8 is not great wide open, but very sharp stopped down some (the new 50/1.8G is reportedly rather better).

    It’s often the case where a maker has two primes that the faster one is optimized for shooting wide open, and slower one for middling apertures (which can make them superior as a general purpose lens, but somewhat disappointing if you get it specifically as a low light lens)

    #43950
    orionid
    Participant

    orionid – Seriously, how long did it take until you were this comfortable with camera gear? I couldn’t imagine taking my stuff apart yet – I’d be scared to crap that I’d lose pieces and break it. Then again, for $35…. Point is, I wouldn’t even know where to *start* for that sort of thing! I’m always jealous of your projects, haha.

    Short answer: I’m not entirely certain, I’ve been taking things apart for as long as I can remember. Eventually, I learned to put them back together again.

    TL;DR answer: I’ve always been fascinated by electric and mechanical devices, and wanted to know how they worked. My parents love to tell the story about Christmas when I was five, I got my first set of cheap wood and punched steel chinese tools. About halfway through the day, they realized that the house was too quiet, so when they went to investigate, they found me in the kitchen with the front doors pulled off all the cabinets and working on pulling out the slide tracks from the drawers.

    About six months later, I was reading electrical schematics and had my Ham Radio license. Less than a year after that, I was buying (or being given because I was soooo young and precotious) what Hams generally refer to as “boat anchors” – large, antique, usually military surplus, radio equipment. Then I’d strip them for parts, selling the knobs and switches for change and the large, discreet components for serious dollars (like silver-wound variable inductors for $75 a pop, large variable capacitors for $15-50 each, and tubes anywhere from $1-500 depending what it was).

    Somewhere around 10, I started realizing that things didn’t have to go back exactly as I found them. Broken things could be fixed, components could be swapped for different functions, and purposes could be altered altogether. And it was all down hill from there.

    Specifically regarding optics, I guess it’s been fairly recent. When I first started working on a design for a camera payload for model rocketry, I was simultaneously going through my depression-induced ebay therapy phase. So I bought a box of junk antique cameras for a couple bucks figuring I could mix-and-match parts. Once I had what I needed, I took a look at the rest of the box and thought “I’ll bet I can fix and salvage a couple of those.” Then it was only a matter of time to just move onto more complex pieces. I just got a nice set of optical spanner wrenches for Christmas this year, so now I can actually work deep inside the lens tubes. Yay!

    #43951
    Kestrana
    Participant

    He forgot to mention the time he stuck his finger in the electrical socket when he was six, and also the time he set the living room carpet on fire during one of his “speriments”

    #43952
    Farktographer
    Participant

    Haha, sounds like you’re the guy that has 20 projects in the garage at one time. Awesome.

Viewing 7 posts - 31 through 37 (of 37 total)
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