Orion

Orion and clouds, Sony A7S+Elmarit 35/2.0

Orion, single shot and stacked shot

Stacking fully aligned star shots is made possible with Star Adventurer. The unit with a camera sitting on top of it  follows the earth's rotation around the polar axis thus should eliminate the issue of star trails especially for long exposures. Multiple single shots exposure are taken over a certain time window, then these shots are stacked with a chosen stacking software. The reference standard software for stacking has always been the Deep Sky Stacker. DSS is available for free from the web. It has all the buttons you need for a successful stacking operation.

Since swapping laptop this year I'm no longer able to use some of my favorite softwares among them DSS and Photoshop. So now for a quick and dirty stacking I use Sequator which was recently made available by it's developer also free of charge. It is so much easier to use however with much less options for tweaking the stacking process.

One single shot at 15secs tracked.

A stacked of 12 tracked shots at 15sec each.

The view beneath that of Orion (stitched), light pollution is the bigger issue with astrophotography.

Milkyway from Sulaskard 2017 f/1.2 @ f/2.8 on Sony A7S, single shot tracked, minimum light pollution.

The main isssues with trying to image the night sky falls into two main categories. Those within a photographer's control: 

1) Aperture - wider aperture lets in more light, thus shorter exposure time, less noise, less trailing

2) Sensor size - larger sensor, less noise.
3) Earth's rotation - compensated for by star a tracking device, longer exposure, less need for widest aperture

And the issues outside of a photographer's control :

1) Weather - not much one can do other than more to Tenerife and pray for clear sky
2) Light pollution - seek dark sky (within our control to a certain measure)

A star tracker could possibly solve item 1 and 2 in one swipe, with the tracker you can probably get away with a crop camera, an f/4.5 lens and stacking combination. However the same combination with a fullframe camera and an f/1.2 lens would take your image that much further than a crop sensor  can.

It took me many years to progress from shooting stars and Milkyway with a crop sensor and f/4.5 lenses purely on a account of cost, and partly commitment. Then I saw a lot more of the sky when I moved to fullframe and f/1.2 (big glass) lenses. Then I bought the Skywatcher Star Adventurer, it took me about  a year before I actually dragged it out for a session with the Milkyway.

As for my night sky imaging, I can say that I'm working hard on the motivation and commitment on my part. Along the journey I've also picked up a couple of f/1.4 lenses as well as tripods.

The best I could do with a tripod, crop sensor Canon 40D and f/4.5 lens ... trying to capture fireflies and the stars at Sg Kadulit, Kuala Suai, near Miri, Sarawak. This was several years before Sony A7S!

An attempt at Milkyway (Sep 2011) with Canon 40D+Tokina 16-35/2.8: Iso1000, 30secs,f/2.8. I was shooting Jpeg, WB 5000.

Gems of old

These normal lenses (50mm) range from the rangefinder era are very dear to me. Most are older than I am being stars in their right during the heydays for rangefinder photography. They are all Leica, they are all chrome and German. Probably because I collected them specifically, Canon and Nikon also have their own range of rangfinder lenses. I only have one from Canon, the Serenar 50/1.9 which was imspired by Summitar 50/1.9.

I had used most of these lenses with the Leica screwmounts cameras than I have. Clearly there were some favorites, some I have yet to use extensive. They are the Summar, Summarit, Elmar and Summicron. There's a Russian Elmar that made really nice pictures, which I used more than the original Leica Elmar.

Henry Cartier Bresson used Elmars for his street photography, two screwmount cameras with Elmars. The combination were tiny, light, and were both capable and pocketable.

My favorite has to be the collapsible Summicron f/2.0 in screwmount. With an adapter (Leica Screwmount toLeica M mount bu Voigtlander) the Summicron can also be used on the M mount. Though I don't own a Leica M camera, I do own the Bessa R3M.

Canon Serenar 50/1.9

Leica Summitar 50/1.9

Leica Summar 50/2.0

Another Summitar

Voigtlander Heliar 15/4.5

Leica Elmar 50/3.5

Sony A7S + Summicron 50 collapsible, missing the lenshood.

Bokeh OOF at maximum aperture

Part of the driver for my acquisition of standard lenses was the perspective you get in portraiture and street photography. The other part is my feeble attempt at trying to put some life into my images ... so it doesn't feel stale and exact. At that point of my photography I was trying to escape the "perfect" sharp edge to edge images that I've been making with the system I had at the time.

At one point I felt that the perfect lens produced the perfect photographs that feels rather dry, dead and technical. That led to the complete sell-off of all of my Nikon prime lenses. With the help of ebay, I turned to vintages glasses, the standard 50mm and 80mm. Most of these lenses were formulated and manufactured even before I was born, technically "imperfect" as they are well cared for specimens are still much sought after until today.

In that vein I thought it'd be pretty cool to collect oof images for the various 50mm lenses, so here they are in one post :

Olympus OM 28/2.8

Canon FD 35/2.0

Leica L39 Elmar 50/3.5

Leica M Summicron 50/2.0

Leica L39 Summar 50/1.9

Canon LM Serenar 50/1.9 : stack f/1.9+f/11.0

Canon EF50/1.2

Canon FD50/1.8

Minolta MC ROKKOR-X PG 58/1.2

Nikon AIS 50/1.8

Nikon AIS 50/1.8

Nikon AIS 50/1.8

Samyang AF85/1.4

Minolta MC ROKKOR-PF 85/1.7

Leica R Elmarit 90/2.8

Olympus OM 100/2.8

Nippon Kogaku Nikkor-Q Auto 135/3.5

Nippon Kogaku Nikkor-Q Auto 135/3.5

Leica Elmarit R 135/2.8

Sigma Art 135/1.8

Nippon Kogaku Nikkor Q Auto 135

I have two versions of this lens : the 135/3.5 and 135/2.8 both very light lenses and were very popular in their heyday. I can't recall exactly how much I paid for them but I am very sure that both were cheap items from the bargain bins. The 135/2.8 has a minor inconsequential dent on the build-in hood, while the 135/3.5 suffered a bit of oil sheen at the back of the front element glass (inside).

Though I have not used both of the lenses extensively their reputation holds them in very high regard amongst classic Nikon lens lineage. I especially liked the images from the 135/3.5 due to it's lightness, slim design as as well as it's peculiar ability to generate glow in the pictures particular when subject is shot under sunny conditions. This I think is on account of the oil residue on the front element.

Eventhough both are portraiture lenses, I have yet to make new portraits with any of them.

"This lens line is probably one of Nikon’s longest if not the longest one in Nikon’s history that went into production. It’s lineage can be traced all the way back to Mr. Wakimoto Zenji in the immediate years after the war and the last lens from this long line of 135/3.5 family came out of the factory around the mid ’80s" - from Richard Haw's Classic Nikon Maintenance Site

Sony A7S, Metabones Leica M to Sony E, Voigtlander Leica Screwmount L39 to Leica M, Voigtlander NIKON AIS/AI to Leica Screwmount L39 and finally Nippon Kogaku Nikkor-Q Auto 135/3.5 (Serial no 868743produced between 1969-1971). The 135/2.8 Serial No 175510 produced 1967.

135/3.5 @f/3.5

135/3.5 @f/22

135/3.5 @ f/3.5

135/2.8

135/2.8

To use them with the Sony A7S, I used the Voigtlander Nikon AIS/AI to Leica M adapter and Metabones Leica M to Sony A adapter. There is also the Voigtlander AIS/AI to Leica screwmount, Voigtlander Screwmount to M mount. They fit seamlessly on the E mount.

Compulsive shoppers and Hoarders

Summitar out on the town

I initially wanted to get some shots with the Canon Serenar 50/2.0, however at the last minute changed my mind after seeing how good the test images from the Summitar looked just the night before. It took a couple of set up shots to suss out the sweet spots of the lens, by bedtime it was settled that the Summitar gets first stab for a walkabout.

I didn't go exploring too much today being a shopping day, there are more people about town. So I started at IMS and simply skirted city centre's edge along the water and ended up making a loop that swings back into the train station from Gamle Stavanger before taking bus no 3 back home.

Some quaint little houses next to Norgrain AS. The view from the city bridge of this section always reminded me of  Kiki from Studio Gibli's Kiki's Delivery Service.

Norgrain AS

Kiki's town ... not sure how much longer it'll be there judging from the level of redevelopment in the area.

Norgrain AS in b and w.

Iron stairwell ... antique.

The city bridge from the ground.

Verven apartments, part of new modern redevelopment on the shoreside.

Walking towards Fiskepieren.

New apartments, there used to be a massive whale mural on the side wall of the old Smor Factory just to the left of this building. Towards the right are the original warehouses now most are refitted as offices.

Tufted Ducks at Breivatnet.

I was actually hoping for some (lost tourists) shots at the old houses in Gamle Stavanger but didn't catch anything that could qualify as a central focus. There was a cute black and white cat, it was too fast for me. There weren't anyone else there today. It was a nice walk, all 12000 steps of it.

Leica Summitar 50mm f/2 (1939-1953)

This lens replaced Summar f/2.0  in 1939 and was later superceded by Summicron 50 f/2.0 in 1959. It's compact collapsible design and reputed having extreme center sharpness which softens towards the corners.  The specimen I have is a screwmount, attached to L39 to M adapter then mounted to the Sony A7S via a Metabones Leica M to Sony E adapter.

Cropped

Cropped

Cropped

Cropped, at f/2.8

Cropped, at f/5.6

Cropped, at f/11.0