4/15/14 12:16 AM

Anyone else getting a view?

4/15/14 9:10 AM

Cloudy and rainy in the Northeast. I was hopeful early in the evening, but the clouds thickened.

Here are a bunch of photos by serious amature sky watchers:
http://spaceweathergallery.com/eclipse_gallery.html

4/15/14 9:14 AM

Link to many pic from serious lunar buffs. ;)

http://spaceweathergallery.com/eclipse_gallery.html

4/15/14 12:04 PM

It started raining in mid-afternoon yesterday and continued all night until it turned into snow late this morning. Not the best viewing conditions.

4/15/14 12:14 PM

It started E/SE of my back door. Just land out back as far as the eye can see so good dark sky viewing.
Mar luring above the moon was a pretty cool bonus.

Just when it was darkest so I could hardly see it or make it out anymore it went behind a stand of trees more south, as it was tracking to the south as it progressed. I was falling asleep at that point anyway.

Glad my son left hi 75mm star gazing binos here for me to use. We traded for a spell, he has some field binos instead for a while. ;)

Tried some phone camera shots while it was lighter and reddish, no focal length for that in our Andriods here apparently.

4/15/14 3:12 PM

Total washout for me. :(

4/15/14 8:32 PM

I did not even notice it was the same link. ;O

4/16/14 12:23 AM

Here are three pictures I took from my backyard.

At 11pm AZ time. The earth's shadow is starting to encroach on the moon.



At 12:45am AZ time. Peak.

4/16/14 8:20 AM

Beautiful, Sandiway. Thanks. What did you use to make those shots?

4/16/14 11:59 AM

I used a 75-300mm Olympus telephoto zoom lens for my Olympus OM-D E-M5. because of the crop factor, it's equivalent to a 600mm lens on a full-frame camera.

It's nothing special as far as consumer lenses go. In fact, it's downright slow at f/6.7 at the long end. So I'm happy with the moon shots.

But it's basically, a sunny day lens. It focuses extremely fast though. And the camera body provides 5-axis image stabilization. For example, I used it last weekend to take pictures of jets flying by at the airshow in town. The upside is that it's relatively inexpensive and extremely small and lightweight.

4/16/14 12:30 PM

Here are a few from the Davis-Monthan AFB show. Taken with the same lens having an effective 600mm of reach.

Model acrobatic aircraft:



Thunderbirds passing overhead:



2nd world war planes:

4/16/14 3:19 PM

Nice shots. Those are hand-held with 600mm effective focal length? Any idea what shutter speed? (or ISO, and I could estimate pretty close). The image stabilization seems to work well.

BTW, those 2d world war planes aren't. They're Chinese, made in the 50's, based on a Russian design from the late 40's. But they're very similar to a lot of WW2 designs.

I'm kind of an airplane geek.

4/16/14 5:26 PM

Thanks for the correction. I have no idea about airplanes... :(

All shots at the airshow were handheld of course. I use shutter priority mode at 1/1600s. At 1/1600s I'm sure not the stabilizer has a chance to operate.

The last picture, the Chinese planes, was taken with shutter speed 1/1600s at f/5.6 at 150mm effective focal length.

The one of the Thunderbirds was 1/1600s at f/6.3 at around 300mm effective focal length.

Sandiway

4/16/14 5:39 PM

Here is one at 600mm effective focal length. 1/1600s and f/7.1. Handheld of course...



Detail:



Last edited by sandiway on 4/18/14 2:04 PM; edited 1 time in total

4/18/14 7:24 AM

I really need to get a DSLR and I've been considering the EM-1 or 5. I'm curious about your thoughts on this, since I imagine you compared them, too. I'm thinking about a body, plus the 12-40 f2.8 PRO lens and a telephoto, so it's good to hear that the 75-300mm does a nice job and focuses fast, as I'd be likely to use it to shoot 'cross races and similar events.

One thing that bothers me about the new OM line is the current lack of micro 4/3 lens choices. For example, there's basically nothing that covers the range between 40 and 75mm, unless you look at Panasonic lenses. Hopefully, that will change soon (I hear that Olympus will release a 40-150mm PRO lens this year).

4/18/14 11:20 AM

"1/1600s"

Is that the fastest shutter speed? Almost got the tail rotor, which I did not think was possible?

Also, correct me if wrong, higher f=more depth of field? So a blue background with less depth of field less important. more or less ;)

Or was that the f stop you had to be at for the shutter speed ? I have no idea how fast shutter speeds these are capable of.

Just going from what I think I remember. ;)

4/18/14 2:00 PM

The E-M5 has 1/4000s max shutter. Also the brand-new E-M10.
The E-M1 has 1/8000s.

This is supposed to be the master list of lenses:

http://www.four-thirds.org/en/microft/lense.html

But I have one lens that's not on the list. My 8mm Panasonic fisheye.

I love the light and small lenses, I carry a bunch on trips, on my bike and when going hiking. Modern mirrorless lenses are designed to move much faster than traditional SLR lenses. At the airshow a friend was carry two Canon full-frame DSLRs, one with a 70-200mm Canon L lens and another with a wide-to-mild-telephoto. It looks painful to be walking around for 6 hours with that.

However, I do wish they had stuff that was long telephoto and fast (wide aperture). The Pro series will have them eventually.

Sandiway