manual focus lens for star trails

bledyn125

bledyn125

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bleddyn
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hi there i have just had my first attempt at star trails and i realy like it but i would like to try a cheap manual focus lens that would fit my canon 60d.

tonight i used my tamron 17-50 but it fell off my tripod a few months back and it isnt as sharp as it used to be so im looking for a decent quality mf lens for the job

can anybody suggest some lenses that would fit the bill.will any old film lenses fit my 60d without adapters i dont mind a wide prime or a zoom

i hope somebody can help me out here


bleddyn
 
Any EF mount lens will fit or with an adapter an FD lens would also fit, you would have to manually set aperture on an FD lens. Cheap old EF lenses of decent quality are becoming rare though. There at lots of old rubbish kit lenses available on eBay try and find a metal mount with a distances scale as these are the better EF lenses.
28-70 f3.5 or 35-105 f3.5 are pretty good couple on eBay at70/90 respectively, is 28/35 wide enough?
 
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ok cheers matt i will have a look on ebay to see if i can find something suitable


cheers


bleddyn
 
I'd suggest ignoring the FD lenses, they need an optical correction adapter and your limited by the quality of the correction lens.

Look for m42 mount lenses , they don't need optical correction and the adapters are cheap and plentiful. There are plenty about and many online guides and forums pointing out the good ones and not so good ones.

There are other lens mounts that will work without optical correction, but some require more effort to adapt than others.
 
A glassless FD adapter isn't going to be much good for star trails as it wont focus to infinity. An adapter with a correction lens is going to add serious amounts of CA to the end result.

I'd advise going for an old M42 mount lens (around your desired focal length) or a Zeiss C/Y lens....check the reported CA signature of the lens before buying as some f the wider options do tend to suffer in these high contrast situations.

Bob
 
I don't have experience of FD lenses and adapters so I'm not sure how far from infinity they will go to but if its close to then that should be fine in my experience I rarely focus to infinity for star trails choosing however to focus on my foreground interest...what aperture did you use for your star trail if you were shooting wide open on a lens your already unhappy with that's not going to help..the vast majority of my star trails are shot at f/3.5-5.6 so stopping down if you were wide open my give you back a little sharpness..with out wishing to sound crass can you post an example of your recent attempt just to see if there was also maybe some user error which is always possible

Matt
 
thanks for the suggestions i will have a look at the m42 mount lenses to see whats available.

yes the tamron lens had a big fall the vc dosent work anymore and the lens is pretty soft.i was going to send it to be checked out but i think it will be easier to get a new lens as the repair costs will be to much


cheers


bleddyn
 
MWHCVT said:
I don't have experience of FD lenses and adapters so I'm not sure how far from infinity they will go to but if its close to then that should be fine in my experience I rarely focus to infinity for star trails choosing however to focus on my foreground interest...what aperture did you use for your star trail if you were shooting wide open on a lens your already unhappy with that's not going to help..the vast majority of my star trails are shot at f/3.5-5.6 so stopping down if you were wide open my give you back a little sharpness..with out wishing to sound crass can you post an example of your recent attempt just to see if there was also maybe some user error which is always possible

Matt
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matt i have the one image from tonight its not great as the wind was howling and theres loads of light pollution

the settings where 1600 iso f/3.5 and 18 30sec exposures


Startrails1 by bledd125, on Flickr

i only tried this tonight to try out the software:)



bleddyn
 
Which software did you use out of interest? I'll be honest I'm only on my iPad at the moment and that doesn't exactly look terrible on the softness front, it looks like it was quite windy judging on the movement in the conifer so it's possible the little softness is down to the wind
 
MWHCVT said:
Which software did you use out of interest? I'll be honest I'm only on my iPad at the moment and that doesn't exactly look terrible on the softness front, it looks like it was quite windy judging on the movement in the conifer so it's possible the little softness is down to the wind
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the software is www.startrails.de.its free and easy to use.it was windy tonight and i didnt realy put any thought into the shot at all.

my tamron is not to bad at f/8 but i wiill try it when we get a decent clear nite with no wind


bleddyn
 
bledyn125 said:
the software is www.startrails.de.its free and easy to use.it was windy tonight and i didnt realy put any thought into the shot at all.

my tamron is not to bad at f/8 but i wiill try it when we get a decent clear nite with no wind

bleddyn
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Try StarStax it too is free and many times better than Startrails ;) I would go all the way to f/8 as by then you'll be loosing lots of stars but I would close up your aperture a little more to f/4.5-5 and see the difference that makes to overall sharpness...you can also get away with raising your ISO a little more as noise is to some extent really quite effectively reduced in the stacking process :thumbs:
 
MWHCVT said:
Try StarStax it too is free and many times better than Startrails ;) I would go all the way to f/8 as by then you'll be loosing lots of stars but I would close up your aperture a little more to f/4.5-5 and see the difference that makes to overall sharpness...you can also get away with raising your ISO a little more as noise is to some extent really quite effectively reduced in the stacking process :thumbs:
Click to expand...

ok thanks for the tips i will definatley try it at different aperatures and see what they are like.

i read your tutorial last night and thats what got me going oh and taff63 telling me to try out something other than shooting birds all the time:)

i realy cant wait for a clear night


bleddyn
 
bledyn125 said:
ok thanks for the tips i will definatley try it at different aperatures and see what they are like.

i read your tutorial last night and thats what got me going oh and taff63 telling me to try out something other than shooting birds all the time:)

i realy cant wait for a clear night

bleddyn
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Well you know where to come if you need anymore help :thumbs: when ever there is a post on any of my guides an email notifies me directly to my phone ;)
 
bledyn125 said:
ok matt i will post the next one in your star trails thread:thumbs:

bleddyn
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:lol: sorry didn't mean it to sound like that :thumbs: it's just it's kind of luck of the draw that I spot threads like this :thumbs: always glad when I do though :thumbs: it's also not to be said I always right as with anything photography there is often different routes to the same ends :thumbs:
 
i was going to put the images in your thread any way matt no need to be sorry;)

i appreciate the advice:thumbs:


bleddyn
 
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