The *Official Photography Thread*

If you can swing it I would go with the T7i. Canon stripped the T7 of a lot of features. Buying used will get you way more for your money also.

As far as learning, there's more info on YouTube than you can shake a stick at. I think this dude does a good job explaining the basics:

https://youtu.be/3eVjUrY9a9c

https://youtu.be/SCo81YyO2p4

https://youtu.be/iYvUC20Ibqk

https://youtu.be/oIpmYdpMYZU

https://youtu.be/sI6Qf87loBU

https://youtu.be/nMdtCWtk5-w

...and so on down the YouTube rabbit hole.

 

Here's a couple shots from our rare snowy morning in Eastern NC

 

I've decided to sell my Sony A7III, details here.

 

I’m heading to Death Valley at the end of March for some Astro photography. I’m familiar enough with the process to make ok MW pictures however, I did pick up a couple of goodies for the trip. The first is a Rokinin 14mm lens. The second, an iOptron Sky Guider. This has been something of interest for a while. In theory, it allows for a much larger lens and photographing say galaxies.

I spent an hour or so practicing with it last night. Mostly getting it setup. It’s not difficult except in the dark. You level the tripod, polar align the head, and away you go. It’s much too light in the city to make anything of interest. The stuff I’ve read suggests somewhere between 2 and 3 minutes is the max exposure which seems reasonable. after that, maybe stacking?

Anyone have experience with guiding mounts?

 

My only experience with something like this was also in Death Valley using a friend's AstroTrac about 5 years ago. By the time we remembered we had it with us, it was already pitch black so I had to polar-align the mount to the best of my ability with an LED headlamp and best-guess eyeballing of Polaris in the alignment scope.

My advice would be to practice the alignment process with your setup as much as you can, since how well it is aligned will dictate how long you can let your exposures get. You also don't want to be fiddling with it too much when it's dark out. Towards the end of sunset is an ideal time to do this because it is still light enough that you can easily see what you're doing, and by the time you have the tripod/tracker/camera set up the first stars should start becoming visible.

It looks like the Sky Guider mount has altitude/azimuth adjustments on it, so you could also practice fine-tuning the polar alignment using the drift method and the camera's live view with crosshair overlays: http://www.astrosurf.com/re/polar.html

For deep sky objects it's generally better to take a bunch of shorter exposures and stack them. Though shorter exposures are less illuminated, but they also have less sensor noise. Some stacking software also have the ability to use darkframes (think exposure with the lens cap on) that can be used to build a sensor noise profile and subtract that noise from the stack.

The great thing about digital cameras is you can easily make adjustments on the fly based on your results. If the stars are streaking too much, just shorten the exposure and bump up the ISO.

Here is the result of a 2-minute exposure with my compass-and-eyeball-aligned mount, so even a rough alignment should give you decent results.

 

perfect the detail is incredible

 

Ok, I need help, I love to take pictures, only use my iphone 11, pretty good, but how much more for a better stand alone camera, I really like taking pictures of my experiences, but don't want to carry a camera all the time. I don't know if it's cool here to post instagram, and you can see only a few fam follow me,,, don't want followers just camera advice so check my pics, I know some suck lol: ig-> charleschillout

 

Best advice. Check out photographers you like and see if you cannot duplicate the style. The iPhone is limited with regard to lens length but you can get some accessory stuff that helps. Otherwise, you have a nice selection of images. Spend a bit of time and try using the editor to crop / adjust to make them better-a really neat thing to do with the edit is a slight vignette to draw your eye more to the subject.

Keep at it! A phone camera is a camera and it's pretty good!

 

I took this with my IPhone

 

Looks like you do a lot of macro work or are trying to.

I usually only recommend Nikon gear cause that's what I know best... you can pick up a used Nikon D3xxx or D5xxx series camera and a 40mm 2.8 Micro all used for not a whole lot. That will forsure get you going and learning.

Samples I've taken:

 

thanks guys, you are really up on this stuff, so cool, I think you're right, I need to learn how to use the camera a little more first,,, I really enjoy it and will continue to lurk and learn in this thread.
Excellent pics!

 

get a tripod and mount for the IPhone ifen you want to keep using it’s camera, also check out the manual apps for the IPhone

https://www.mefoto.com/products/sidekick-360-smartphone-holder

 

More truck stuff of course
And some motorcycles

Last two of are @RCV

 

Found this lens and was curious if it’s worth selling. The plastic ring just above the grips is broken. I put it on my Canon t7 and it works but is slow to focus.

 

I don't think it's that great of a lens. I mean I'm sure you can sell it but considering it's not in the best condition, maybe you can get $20 for it.

 

Yeah..here it is on KEH:

https://www.keh.com/shop/canon-35-80mm-f-4-5-6-ef-mount-lens-52-703812.html

 

Go to KEH.com and check. It’s a resale site.
My guess is the lens will not be worth much.

 

Thank y’all

 

It’s a simple shot but man I didn’t realize that a $20 light box from Amazon would dress up photos so much, it almost looks professional.

 

How did I miss this area my entire time on the forum!? This is awesome - a lot of really great work here! I shoot mostly smaller commercial projects in the outdoor world. I find myself doing a lot of commercial work for industrial clients as well. A few recent low-res projects that you can check out.