Hi everybody, I have been using ed astroscopes for 10 years. I love their image quality and low weight, but I was annoyed by how difficult was using them handheld and focussing efficiently. Now I have found the solution. In fact two different solutions. There are a couple of 360mm ed doublets from TS Optics and Tecnosky that use drawtubes to focus, and with a bit of practice and the correct camera you can nail focus with great speed, enabling you to make photos ot rapid moving birds anf... Read more ..read more

Not as much use nowadays, but it's a special feeling to focus manually and hoping for the best from this year, 2023 ..read more

Any Recommendations? Video, Wildlife, Low-light dusk, 400m+ Hi, I am more into wildlife in general, mostly larger animals. I also do more video than I do photos. Applying telescopes to video/photos for super long range without camera lenses that are unaffordable for the same magnification very much appeals to me. Basically, I am looking for a full setup that can record sharp video of a subject at 400 meters or so, in both daylight and the low light of dusk. Understandably lower light... Read more ..read more

I have a Sony rx1r II full frame compact camera, which produces lovely photos, particularly in low light. It has a very nice Zeiss 35mm lens and 42mp sensor. I'd like to use it for afocal astro and terrestrial photography, but I've read here that because the afocal method places a lot of glass between the sensor and object, the image quality is not great. I'm wondering to what extent using very good glass would overcome that problem or whether it would be smarter to buy a Sony A7 dslr... Read more ..read more

at the moment I have approximatedly 10-11 cm extension tube lenght (80mm and pushed out a bit, as well as the camera mount adapter out a bit. one of the photos below was taken at 300mm (zuiko 75-300) the other with the 600mm celestron 80ED, and sitting at the same spot. Sensor plane difference might have been a few centimeters, give or take. While upsizing the 300mm to match the other it took 255% - giving me approx 765mm. Am I doing something wrong here? or can the small variance of a... Read more ..read more

These were taken with an older Canon DSLR and a Omegon 72/432mm APO. These were some of the first pictures I took with that camera, and some of the first pictures I've taken since 1994 with an SLR. I'm hoping to get better in time and get into it as a part time hobby ..read more

Scope: Celestron 80ED f7.5 600mm Camera: Olympus E-3 80mm extension tube Wagtail: iso 100 1/400s square crop (4:3 - to 3:3) Blackbird iso 100 1/500s square crop (4:3 - to 3:3) Nuthatch iso 400 1/250s square crop (4:3 - to 3:3) not sure, some yellow songbird of sorts iso 400 1/650s square crop (4:3 - to 3:3) Magpie iso 400 1/400s uncropped ..read more

just signed up again was on here years ago and still useing the SW ed80 600 but now with the olympus mc20 em1x for distant shooting but im still after more reach im now thinking either the hikon j5 or pentax q10 . hers my lastest from the car hide em1x mc20 SW80ed /600 cropped to 7.74 megapixels ..read more

Not quite too sure which forum to post this in, but figured there might be a few stargazers here who would appreciate it, even if it's mostly set up for the reverse! - using astro gear to photograph terrestrially ..... A "dragonfly" array of 24! count them! Canon 400mm f2.8L II lenses with the important SWC (although I think other manufacturer's Nano coat technologies might be just as good?) are used to spot difficult to photograph cosmic phenomena .... way to spend... Read more ..read more

Hi all I am look at getting back into bird photography after a 6 year break . This means starting again from scratch with my equipment. I have been looking at both the tamron and sigma 150-600 mm lenses and can’t decide which to get . I’d love to here opinions on these lenses and which you think I should get and why . Thanks in advance ..read more