Message posted by JB737 on December 14, 2007 at 20:50:21 PST:
Your camera does have mirror lockup available, if you navigate through the menus. Unfortunately, my Nikon D70 does not...which is its very worst feature. With your 1.6x factor compared to 35mm film, the 2000mm Maksutov version would be like 3200mm on film...on the long side but still not a bad length for photographing the base. If it fits in your pack and you don't mind the weight, go for it. Despite being slow (around f/16) it is still preferable to using a shorter lens and extenders. Remember to practice on the moon first! As for tripods.... I took a couple of different "clamp-pods" which are essentially C clamps with a small ball/socket tripod head attached. Maybe 2 inches and 2 ounces apiece. I thinned a protruding nub on a boulder to the right thickness so that I could clamp one onto it. Slightly toward the base and a bit down/left, from the obvious viewing spot. Careful not to go too far in that direction, it drops off. I took about half of my photos that way, and then did them all over again with the camera and lens wedged on top of one of the top front boulders. Had to be a bit of a contortionist to see through the viewfinder, and scraped up the lens housing a little, but it also worked OK. I had carried up some rubberized nylon army bags to use as sandbags but never made the effort to fill them as Method #3, but I should have. Once you've made the effort to get up there, taking extra exposures by different methods is pretty easy. It's tempting to permanently install a bolt into one of the boulders or one of the timbers, so that you could just carry a tripod head (such as the heavier geared Bogen, or any old 35mm-movie-camera fluid head) instead of the whole tripod plus head. With care, it could even be installed perpendicular to the panning plane so that a very simple/sturdy tripod head would suffice. The timbers are not ideally oriented for use as a camera platform now, and are in sort of an awkward position to view from even if you did bolt into them. Plenty of boulder tops are candidates, though. I hope to find one with a comfortable sitting or standing position available to work from, as I remember being pretty uncomfortable kneeling on rocks and so forth while shooting. JB737
In Reply to: Re: what's the minimum size camera optics for good photos of the base? posted by psiuh88 on December 13, 2007 at 5:20:21 PST:
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