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***March 2025 Image and Video Thread***

Travis Butler said:
Do you have any de-noise tools? If you'd like, link me one of those totality raw's and I can try running it through the one I use.
Click to expand...

I don't use anything, generally. There's a BlurXterminator plug-in in PixInsight I use for deep-space astro shots, but in general I try keeping the ISO setting low to prevent noise from being generated in the first place - it's a relic from my film days, I guess.

Dunno if this will work, but there's an RW2 file here:
 
The Rigger said:
I don't use anything, generally. There's a BlurXterminator plug-in in PixInsight I use for deep-space astro shots, but in general I try keeping the ISO setting low to prevent noise from being generated in the first place - it's a relic from my film days, I guess.

Dunno if this will work, but there's an RW2 file here:
Click to expand...


Well, nuts. It looked like noise that On1 was able to do a pretty good job with on my pics, but this was the best I could get from it:

20250314-_1020217.jpg


I think the ISO 6400 may have been part of it; I got the best results with shutter speed settings that kept the ISO between 800 and 1600.
 
Travis Butler said:
I think the ISO 6400 may have been part of it; I got the best results with shutter speed settings that kept the ISO between 800 and 1600.
Click to expand...
I'm sure the high ISO number contributed, given how clear the pre-totality ISO 100 shots look, but on the other hand the Read Noise in the S5's sensor is pretty low at anything above ISO 600 or so, ...

Lumix S5 — Read Noise vs ISO.png

This was taken from the Photons to Photos website's archive.
Also, between the shutter speeds I was using and the ambient temperature ("Brisk" would be an apt description), I don't believe my problem was thermal noise. I doubt the sensor had any time to heat up, even shooting at 1/5th of a second.

[*shrug*] I'm still pretty chuffed with what I got, all things considered. And I've got 5-6 years to think about how I'd do the next one differently. Your shots are impressive, so much so that I just swooped a mint-ish Tamron 55BB and a K&F Concept L-mount adaptor for myself off eBay last night. It could be the best $150 astro lens I've ever seen.
 
Some more testing with the Sigma
Overgrown
PANA2980.jpg


Horse walking to me with af-c
PANA2985.jpg


Sun rays
PANA2981.jpg
 
The Rigger said:
I'm sure the high ISO number contributed, given how clear the pre-totality ISO 100 shots look, but on the other hand the Read Noise in the S5's sensor is pretty low at anything above ISO 600 or so, ...

View attachment 9726
This was taken from the Photons to Photos website's archive.
Click to expand...

Huh... interesting. All I can say is that while I've generally had good luck with interior low-light at 6400, the other night things were looking consistently better in that 1600-and-under range... though now that I think of it, the 2000 shots weren't bad.

The Rigger said:
[*shrug*] I'm still pretty chuffed with what I got, all things considered. And I've got 5-6 years to think about how I'd do the next one differently. Your shots are impressive, so much so that I just swooped a mint-ish Tamron 55BB and a K&F Concept L-mount adaptor for myself off eBay last night. It could be the best $150 astro lens I've ever seen.
Click to expand...
Oooh. Good luck with it!

The trickiest part for me is focusing, but at least the 55BB has a nice wide focus ring that's got pretty smooth damping; DoF with the mirror lens is still very narrow, unfortunately.
 
Travis Butler said:
Huh... interesting. All I can say is that while I've generally had good luck with interior low-light at 6400, the other night things were looking consistently better in that 1600-and-under range... though now that I think of it, the 2000 shots weren't bad.


Oooh. Good luck with it!

The trickiest part for me is focusing, but at least the 55BB has a nice wide focus ring that's got pretty smooth damping; DoF with the mirror lens is still very narrow, unfortunately.
Click to expand...
Have you tried to adapt that lens to an m43 ? Then you would get 1000mm
 
Empty bulk grain train heading south through the township of Goulburn, 225 kilometres south-west of Sydney.


P1011770_DxO-1.jpg
 
RuleOfThirds said:
Have you tried to adapt that lens to an m43 ? Then you would get 1000mm
Click to expand...
Oh, I have, many times; it’s what I used to shoot the solar eclipse last year. It was also able to get a shot during the Jupiter/Saturn conjunction a few years ago, where you could see a couple of the Galilean moons and a hint of the rings. (Well, two different shots - to get the rings, had to shorten the exposure enough that I lost the moons.)
 
Travis Butler said:
The trickiest part for me is focusing, but at least the 55BB has a nice wide focus ring that's got pretty smooth damping; DoF with the mirror lens is still very narrow, unfortunately.
Click to expand...
This seems like a lens best used with a split-prism focus screen, for terrestrial use. Too bad that's not an option. I think though, since I plan on using it mainly for Astro work, that focusing it tethered to my laptop, using that lovely 15" Retina screen as a focus screen, should work out well. To be determined.
 
From the Parade of Hearts a couple of years ago:

54347557548_fcd105474a_b.jpg

20220513-SDIM0557 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
Sigma fp, Pentax-M 50/1.7

The Pentax-M 50/1.7 is supposed to be another one of the one-step-back fast 50s, like the Olympus OM 50/1.8, that's better than the corresponding 50/1.4. And it is a good lens, no doubt. I just.. maybe I'm missing it, but it doesn't really seem to have something extra compared to the 50/1.4; and I love the 1.4 for both sharpness stopped down and the really smooth bokeh and transitions wider open. I dunno. Certainly don't turn the lens down if you have a chance to grab one at a reasonable price!

54347324786_d898f2c4e2_b.jpg

20220513-SDIM0551 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

Poppies for the World War I museum.
 
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Last night we had a thunderstorm pass by but I didn't have time to set up a tripod and get the camera shooting a sequence automatically so I quickly grabbed the S5 and Sigma 24/2, focused to the horizon then turned AF off, manual exposure at 1/8s and tried to reactively shoot the lightning. As anyone with experience would expect, that didn't turn out very well and this is the best shot I got. It's about a 20% crop of the full image.

54399756553_387e5c96f0_c.jpg

The storm by Jonathan MacDonald, on Flickr
 
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