[CauseISaidSo]

Did you say $79? Well, have I got a deal for you…

Actually I don’t have the deal, I have nothing to do with them, but I’ve used GetDataBack with success. You can download and try it and only pay if it’s gonna work for you. I’ve recovered images off a CF card that I formatted after the drive I transferred the images to failed. It’s very important that you do as you say and not touch the drive in the meanwhile, though.

[CauseISaidSo]

Yep, what rav said, schnee. Thanks for the kudo, BTW.

I really, really didn’t mean for this to drive you out, especially as it’s taking much longer than I anticipated (which I should’ve anticipated because that’s always the case with me). If you want, I can forward the data from the FSM missed contests to get you back current. If you sincerely are just ready to move on and pass the torch so to speak, I can certainly understand and respect that, too. Just know that the community appreciates what you’ve done with FSM.

[CauseISaidSo]

Sorry, when I said “IR remotes” I meant the pre-programmed or generic TV/audio/visual equipment remotes. From your and orionid’s descriptions, it sounds like the Nikon remote is just a pure IR pulse, in which case if the magnesium shavings happened to generate that frequency of IR, it likely would’ve triggered.

[CauseISaidSo]

My buddy did just that for a sony alpha. Turns out, the pre-programmed remotes are coded signals, not a solid, high-density IR beam, so your best bet is an IR LED from Radio Shack, a button, and a 3V (or whatever the nominal LED voltage is) battery. It’ll run you about $8 total, which is comparable to a cheap hong kong trigger.

Yep, IR remotes use a modulated signal in the 38-40kHz range.

When building your own, don’t forget a resistor or your IR LED will likely live a bright but very brief life. Use Ohm’s law (R=V/I) to calculate the resistor size based on the battery voltage (V) and maximum current (I) of the IR LED.

[CauseISaidSo]

What he failed to mention was that flight to Seattle was when he was coming out to see me after being separated for about 45 days, as I was preparing to move to the East Coast with him. I’m waiting anxiously (because I left my cell phone at work) at the baggage claim for my boyfriend and in between all the Army guys coming home from Afghanistan some dude in a skirt comes up to me…

Were you aware of that possibility or was it a complete surprise? Trying to imaging how that would play out… 🙂

And nice shots of Sailfest, both of you. Is Sailfest a Navy thing, or just nautical in general, or…?

[CauseISaidSo]

Nice shots all around. Especially like orionid’s Gillette BW and sleeping’s first waterfall.

So, when’s the midwest farktographer get-together? * sound of crickets chirping… *

[CauseISaidSo]

Hey! I have a doctors note for the ones I missed. Doesn’t that count?

Maybe it would, if this were something trivial like horseshoes or nuclear war, but this is Farktography stats! Serious. Business. 😉

[CauseISaidSo]

Yep, sleeping‘s just barely behind you in total contests, but as he said, they’re not consecutive. Here’s the top ten by contest count:

Rank  UserName         Contests  Entries

----





1   Elsinore           272      729

2   sleeping           261      669

3   U-Man              210      581

4   Linguine           194      530

5   SilverStag         183      513

6   swampa2            179      518

7   I'm No Big Deal    179      522

8   Curious            178      490

9   corsec67           176      512

10   Mopsy              173      508

[CauseISaidSo]

Glad to help, Farktographer. Besides, if you were going for the longest consecutive streak, you’d have to wait for Elsinore to retire and then wait another 4-5 years!

She holds the record for consecutive contests entered at 272, followed by Mopsy at 173 and Kestrana at 96. You were #5 on that list, so sorry about that…

[CauseISaidSo]

Oh, and I just thought of one more thing to try to minimize blur/shake – mirror lockup. You’ll need to verify that the Rebel (that’s the camera you have, right?) has this. If it does, it’ll be another custom function.

What it does is this:
1) There’s a mirror that sits between the lens and sensor and redirects the image that the lens sees to your viewfinder.
2) When you click the shutter, that mirror springs up out of the way so that the lens image now goes to the sensor to take the picture.
3) The action of the mirror springing up can cause slight camera shake.

In mirror lockup mode, you compose your shot through the viewfinder and then click the shutter button once which moves the mirror and locks it there (no picture is taken at this point). From there on, further shutter button presses take the shot without moving the mirror. You can read about it general on wikipedia and of course you’ll want to review your manual for specifics for your camera.

[CauseISaidSo]

CD, you’re welcome for the input, and here’s some more…

While I try to buy genuine Canon stuff for most things, a shutter release is a really simple mechanical device and it doesn’t matter much who makes it. For example, here’s one at B&H for $9.49. I don’t know if it’s compatible with your specific camera, but if not there will be another one in that price range that is.

Bottom line – go cheap on the wired shutter release. Even if it ends up failing prematurely, you can buy 3 of them for the same price as the Canon.

[CauseISaidSo]

Sorry, I just looked at those lenses on B&H and it appears they don’t have a focus indicator. In that case, I’d guess that Kes is right in that you want to move the focus ring all the way to the end, but also use orionid‘s suggestion to zoom in and use live view to tweak the focus.

Regarding f/stop, it depends on the body you’re focusing on (moon is obviously quite different than stars), but for stars you’ll likely want to use the widest aperture (lowest number f/stop). That way you get the most light and minimize the possible bluriness I mentioned previously from stars moving during a long exposure. Lower f/stops have a shallower DOF, but that’s not a problem when all of the subjects you’re interested in are at infinity focus.

[CauseISaidSo]

So if you’re manually focusing, turning the ring to the infinity symbol (on our lenses that’s usually all the way to the right) sets the focus to infinity.

OK, please school me if I’m wrong, but it’s my understanding that turning the focus ring all the way to the end sets the focus “beyond” infinity and is there to adjust for environmental extremes, Under normal circumstances, infinity is set by aligning the infinity symbol with the focal length mark like so:

Now that’s just what I remember reading somewhere, so please correct me if I’m wrong.

Also, another possible source of bluriness in stars can be if you have too long of an exposure. I’ve found that after as short as 30 seconds or so, they’ve moved enough to start to blur.

[CauseISaidSo]

Elsinore, I noticed that fiveyearswinter confirmed that his entry was HDR but it’s still vote-enabled. Don’t know if that was intended or not, so FYI just in case.

[CauseISaidSo]

You do realize that I’ll now be silently questioning myself whether your’re serious or joking over all future seemingly outrageous posts, right? 🙂

I’ve never been to a show that I wanted to photo bad enough to do that, but I do respect your lack of caring over what others might think.

[Author]

Posts