Calling all Photography nerds!

Most large-aperture lenses aren't the sharpest at max aperture. Try stopping down 2.0, you'll see a huge improvement.

 

I just realized that when uploading an attachment, this forum software really compresses the image and destroys the sharpness. That sucks.

 

I have a lot of experience with shooting astro, and I always stop down a little. I was shooting at f2.0 with that 50, but its the cheap nifty fiffty. its only a $300 lens, and you can tell how cheap it is on the edges with a large aperture. Thinking about looking into the sigma art series.. I want a 50mm with a larger aperture than 2.8 and with image stablization. Do they make such a lens???

Heres one of the shots with that 50mm f1.4 stopped down to f2.0. I notice it the most in the top right corner, but i can always crop into a square for IG posts.

 

I'm just glad it's Milky Way Season again! I like the wider angle lens due to star trails vs. length of time you can hold the shutter open. I typically shoot with either the Rokinon 14mm 2.8 or the Nikon 20mm 1.8. 1st pic is with the 20mm second is with the 14mm the following night in Utah.

 

I want to play! No solid Taco shots to upload. I do mostly southwest landscapes, and a little astro. Nikon D80, 18-135mm DX, Lightroom.

 

Ive changed my mind about what I shoot the stars with now since I first started.. before I was all about wide angle.. but the bigger the focal length, the bigger the milky way is displayed in the sky.. I can almost get the milky way core to fill the entire sky in the frame.. other than that, my GO TO is Samyang 24mm f1.4. Even though its full manual, (actually better for shooting stars than auto lenses) its one of my favorite lenses.. I just bought a 300mm f4 L IS.

 

Looking at the Samyang 24 myself. Heard it's a great lens for Astro photos assuming you can get a good one. I've got a cheaper Nikon 30omm zoom that I managed to capture Andromeda in last year but so noisy and only F5.6. That 300 F4 L lens should be money. Especially if you get a tracker.

 

My favorite Astro lens is whichever 2.8 my church will let me borrow.

 

Videography count? My truck makes an appearance in my latest paramotor video, and I shot a few bits on my EM-5 MkII:

https://youtu.be/bsMkbdRHfks

Helmet cam is a Sony HDR-AS300, foot cam is a GoPro Session, and most of the b-roll was shot with my Olympus OM-D EM-5 mkII.

 

Canon 6D and budget lenses

 

Dude, I felt the same way after reading Amazon reviews and such.. I havent notice any issues with mine, and I bought it used from adorama. It was a demo model they had. But seriously one of my fav lens for all kinds of stuff. If you shoot with that 300mm again, shoot multiple photos and stack them for noise reduction. It works really well! This weekend at the offroad expo in AZ, I shot with a 100mm 2.8 macro lens. It actually did very well and had nice bokeh. Was even able to get a few decent shots of the trucks jumping but my 100-400 f4.5-5.6 took the cake for that since spectators werent allowed very close.

After the weekend, I think im going to buy a 5DMKIV this or next week..

 

My air show setup waiting for the action.

 

A 45-image stack taken in my studio macro setup.

 

Great minds here in this thread. There are quite a few inspirational shares, especially considering I lost 80% of my digital collection a few years back. Made me lose interest and lost my passion along the way. Amateur mistake and extremely frustrating. Lesson learned nonetheless.

Beautiful rigs though and would love to constribite sometime in the future.

 

Sometimes I think deleting my entire collection would be so freeing. Something about the fresh start seems like it would be refreshing. The only pictures I would miss are my lightning shots.

 

I'll join this party! I've had a Pentax K-30 for about 5 years, shoot mostly with my DA*50-135 and HD DA20-40mm Limited but have some wider and longer options. Living in Alaska gives me great opportunities for landscapes and night scapes...


Auroras web-9535 by David Dawson, on Flickr


Denali from Eielson Visitor's Center by David Dawson, on Flickr

Critters too

Spike moose in the brush by David Dawson, on Flickr

I get out of state occasionally too, and love shooting portraits especially of artists and groups at work

Light up the Night by David Dawson, on Flickr

 

That's a great way of looking at it. You might say, liberated? Most of mine that were lost, were photos/vids of gone loved ones.

I still have most of my hardware though

 

I'm not sure how I'd feel about it either way. Losing the work stuff would be a "meh" but losing the important family stuff that's mixed in there would be rough as hell. As long as off-site storage stays as cheap as it is now, and backup software stays as automated, I'll just keep them all in the cloud for now. Gotta love automated daily syncing to cloud! Just keep shooting!

 

I like to do black and white in most of my landscapes.

 

But color looks good on Alaska too.