Message posted by gary on July 27, 2001 at 22:58:47 PST:
Getting the image to the camera isn't a problem, but metering sure is. Pretty much you need an old manual focus camera. Sedalia Mike and the Catman both had Nikon F3s with them when they were here in April, which I tried out with my ETX90, and was impressed. Doing a bit of research, the F3 is the way to go, but it certainly is not cheap. The big advantage to the F3 is the companion DW-4 magnifying viewfinder. I've used magnifying viewfinders before, but not at good as the DW-4, which lets you see the whole image. Most viewfinder magnifiers only show part of the image, and need to be removed once critical focusing is done. Once I think I have the technique down, I'm going to put something on my website about doing these long distance photos. You can look at www.desertsecrets.com to get some good photography tips. Doing a search on astrophography will bring up all sorts of information on interfacing telescopes to cameras, but you need to keep everything in perspective. Generally, the astronomers are doing very long exposures, and don't bother to meter their images. So if they suggest a certain camera works, it may work for them, but not for you because you are doing daytime terrestrial telephotography, not astronomy, and you need to meter. Most of the terrestrial photo tips you find on the net are from bird watchers, but they don't attempt to take photos from 26 miles. The people who know how to do this are most likely the military satellite experts, and they don't seem to be posting photo tips on the net. If you get a F3, I suggest you buy it locally AND get the right to return it if your local Nikon shop says it's not working right. Mine needed to have the "shutter balance" adjusted to the tune of $140. Better to avoid ebay and pay a bit more locally if you have the right to take it back.
In Reply to: Re: Tikaboo Peak posted by Joerg (Webmaster) on July 27, 2001 at 12:02:05 PST:
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