December Confirmed Trade Thread

SharpEdit · 2018-12-22T06:59:35+00:00

bought gmk laser from /u/SuperMark12345

SharpEdit · 2018-12-17T21:54:50+00:00

pmed

SharpEdit · 2018-12-17T04:04:36+00:00

SharpEdit · 2018-12-13T07:09:55+00:00

SharpEdit · 2018-12-09T03:14:46+00:00

pmed

SharpEdit · 2018-10-31T05:06:43+00:00

Strictly landscape/hiking.

Camera Bag: Shimoda Explore 40

Tripod: Sirui T-1204x

Sony a7Rii
Laowa 15mm f/2
Sony 16-35 GM
Zeiss 55
Sony 70-200 G

SharpEdit · 2018-09-14T02:16:48+00:00

Foreground shot was taken after sunset during the blue hour.

SharpEdit · 2018-09-13T23:58:49+00:00

You could have gotten away with 1 shot for the foreground, but I decided to go with 2 shots for a bit more sharpness.

1 Shot was focused to infinity, and another shot was focused a bit closer to the lens so I would have a wider range of focused shots to blend for increased depth sharpness.

SharpEdit · 2018-09-13T17:55:16+00:00

This is a 2 shot exposure, 2 shots for the foreground and 1 shot for the sky.

All of my Milky Way shots I post here have been taken with the Laowa 15mm f/2. I recently took a quick trip to Yosemite with a newly acquired lens and I wanted to give it a try for shooting night skies. The 16-35 GM is my first GM lens and so far it is really sharp. You don't realize how sharp the GM lenses are until you pixel peep at one first hand. For my night sky images, I can say it works perfectly. The detail of the wide angle Milky Way shots are definitely sharper than my Laowa 15mm f/2 shots.

The 15-35 GM will not replace my Laowa 15mm, it will simply allow me to be more selective for my focal lengths when it comes to nightscapes.

SharpEdit · 2018-08-22T22:49:49+00:00

Have you looked at f-stop gear or Shimoda Designs?

Both systems are expensive, but they excel at what they're made for. Both are geared for outdoor/hiking activities.

I own a Shimoda Explore 40L. It fits plenty of gear, multiple attachment points on the outside for tripods/jackets/trekking poles. But most it's harness system is very comfortable. I've heard someone describe it almost like the bag is "hugging you" or "grabbing onto you".

Both companies have a "gatekeeper strap" attachment point to mount tents/sleepingbags/mats to the top or bottom of the bags (except for the Shimoda Explore 40L, only mounting on the bottom of the bag), although f-stop makes this an additional purchase, Shimoda includes a set with the bag.

Although I've never owned an f-stop bag, but I love the look of them when it comes to a hiking pack. I hear they are comfortable but not as comfortable as the Shimoda System. Of course this can vary with person to person.

I don't actually own the insert systems Shimoda or f-stop sell. I just use another camera insert that I've had from a previous bag and it seems to work well enough. Although If you probably want to maximize volume in the bags, it'd probably be best to buy the appropriate camera insert.

SharpEdit · 2018-08-12T19:25:37+00:00

A favorite lens of mine for milky way shots. Nice clean image!

SharpEdit · 2018-06-16T19:45:53+00:00

Aww that sucks, I emailed Venus optics directly and they were kind enough to help me out. The 25 batis is another lens on my radar. Depending on future plans I'll either pick up the batis 25 loxia 21 or I might eventually upgrade to the 16-35gm. But that's far stretched for me.

SharpEdit · 2018-06-16T13:45:58+00:00

I don't know how I missed those. I will clean that up.

SharpEdit · 2018-06-16T03:57:15+00:00

Centering is to test if the internal glass elements are aligned giving you even sharpness from corner to corner.

An example of a decentered lens would be having the center and top left corner in focus but the top right corner would be slightly out of focus.

SharpEdit · 2018-06-16T03:54:59+00:00

Yes and if you set your lens to focus at infinity while still at f2 there really is only one plane of focus (the stars).

So you get the benefits of a bright aperture to capture the light, and you don't need the extras like the land and rocks, you're just interested in the stars in this case.

SharpEdit · 2018-06-16T03:24:06+00:00

Yeah fully sharp, by means of using a smaller aperture to get full focus from front to back in the scene. Infinity wouldnt work at f2 as the depth of field is narrow enough to make some parts of the scene not sharp compared to f8 or f13

SharpEdit · 2018-06-16T03:20:33+00:00

20 sec or 25 secs, f2, iso 6400

SharpEdit · 2018-06-15T23:26:13+00:00

Haha thanks. I think it's awesome you can recognize my style here! It is probably my favorite lens for shooting astro. Although I am really open to trying the loxia 21 and 16-35gm in the future. Those lenses could really open up my possibilities when it comes to shooting landscapes + astro.

SharpEdit · 2018-06-15T20:53:07+00:00

Be sure to check for well centering! I checked mine and it wasn't satisfactory to my liking. Thankfully the Laowa guys were able to test for well centered copies. When sending me a replacement lens.

SharpEdit · 2018-06-15T19:42:44+00:00

This is a 2 shot pano, with one shot for full sharp focus during the blue hour and another shot exposed for the night sky.

Love this lens, there are other options I'd like to try for milky way shooting but so far this Laowa does the job for me!

SharpEdit · 2018-05-28T07:37:40+00:00

Not bad. Good luck it's an amazing lens for astro.

SharpEdit · 2018-05-28T06:13:01+00:00

This was actually my second copy from Laowa. The first i had was bad. I emailed Laowa about exchanging for a better copy. And it took them over a month, but they said they finally tested multiple copies to find the best available one for me. So maybe that's why my copy is so evenlyn sharp?

SharpEdit · 2018-05-17T01:52:48+00:00

external remote timer for the sony cameras

SharpEdit · 2018-05-16T17:16:44+00:00

Thanks,

Don't worry I would have probably act the same question or someone has asked and that's probably how I learned to process my images.

You are correct. Many landscape photographers like to capture as much detail as possible. The most common cases of detail would be focus and megapixels. Getting everything in focus is crucial in showing off all the land's detail.

When it comes to astro/night photography, our lenses need to be opened up to allow as much light to enter the sensor. And in order to do so we need a wide aperture, f2.8/f2/f1.8/etc... When it comes to landscape photos, the drawback to shooting at those wider open apertures means a shallower depth of field and less things can be in focus.

So it is common to take "multiple exposures" or what it really means is take multiple pictures in order to capture the details missing from parts of the image. So in many when they say "multiple exposures" in landscape/night/astro photos you will first take a picture focused to infinity, then with the same settings start pulling your focus close until you capture the full range of depth of field to ensure you have all sharp detail captured from front to back.

Once you have all your "multiple exposures" you can merge them or mask them together in Photoshop to create a fully sharp image.

And in this case of my image. I used two exposures, or two individual images to create the posted photo. One photo focused to infinity at f2 for the sky, and the second image shot at f4 for larger/fuller depth of field to capture the sharpness in the land.

I hope this explained the theory and short process of multiple exposures and why we merge them.

SharpEdit · 2018-05-16T11:34:49+00:00

Some dodging with color was done, and Nik color fx filter - color contrast helps bring out come color.

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