Newb with probably newb question! :)

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Meth

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Morning all,

Now im VERY new to photography (after being interested in it for yyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeears!), I was bought a camera for christmas by my lovely parents It is one of these S3200 24x Zoom Bridge cameras - seem to be the bargain camera in every shop this festive season

Now - With a 24x Zoom I thought this would be insane... its great, but not insane. I would love 30-40x Zoom idealy. Now you cannot swap lenses aparently, this I can understand - however, I have seen lens adapters that you can by to allow you to put lenses over the camera etc... Is there such a thing as a zoom lens that I could put over without it looking awfull at full zoom? Would the auto focus still work if this was possible?

Secondly, if this is a possible solution - are there such things as extension tube things that would allow me to space this "lens" out far enough for my original lens to come out of the camera when I zoom in?

Thankyou in advance for your advise & Help!

Basically I dont know if this is possible - but I would love to be able to take pictures of the stars / planets at night etc

Cheers!
 
Hi Meth. Welcome to the forum and what a nice Christmas present. My advice would be learn to get the best from this camera. No camera/lens will do everything. Shooting planets close up might be out of your range, but there is nothing to stop you taking night shots, long exposures. Sometimes location is at least as important, if not more than, as the camera. Learn by doing, take lots of pics, decide which work best using your camera set up. Don't be too ambitious to start. Post pics for feedback. We're a friendly bunch here, usually give constructive crit.
 
Thankyou for the very warm welcome :) I look forward to being a regular here and improving my photography! its going to be a very strong learning curve im sure!

In regards to the stars and planets etc, I realy want to be able to zoom in and see them through my camera - I will be taking lots of nice shots etc of the sky but realy want to be able to see them up close.

Is there ANY way this is possible with my previous research? Or any other way? Using my current camera - as I have said its a christmas present I cant replace it.

:)
 
Meth, there is no way with a standard camera set up to take close up pictures of the planets, even the moon requires more reach than is conveniently available. What most people do who have a desire for such pictures is called digiscoping and is essentially attaching a digital camera to an astronomical (or any other) telescope. On these boards the technique is mainly used for wildlife there seems to be a good explanation HERE

Good luck with whatever you do and welcome to the sometimes frustrating world of photography :D

Ian

PS. I've never tried digiscoping so that's about the limit of my knowledge
 
Hi Meth and welcome. The S3200 has a zoom range between 24mm and 576mm which is a very reasonable distance. I've recently bought a Sigma 150-500mm lens which is slightly shorter than your lens and I have taken photos of the moon, which when viewed at full size on my computer, gives me an image around 6" in diameter. Bear in mind that this lens alone cost over £600 and the camera body a further £1,400 or so. I think you may be over reaching trying to get photos of stars and planets when you think that the Hubble telescope cost $1.5 Billion.
 
Hello, Meth.

There are lenses that will go on the front of your camera which will extend the zoom range, but the quality may suffer - there is no such thing as a free lunch.

The planets are out of reach of your camera and incidentally probably every camera owned by anyone on this forum. You would need a telescope to get any decent photos of planets.

You can photograph the stars, but don't expect anything that even remotely looks like the wonderful photos you see of gas clouds and galaxies.

The moon is definitely possible. This was taken with a bridge camera, a Panasonic FZ28.

Feb_12th_013-crop_3.jpg


However, I suggest as you are new to photography just take loads of photos in all sorts of situations of everything and anything.

Dave
 
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