Moon Shot: Building an Affordable Lunar Photography Camera Rig
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- Опубліковано 4 вер 2024
- In this video, Ian Norman talks about building an affordable lunar photography rig and why a small sensor cameras can be 10 times better than a full-frame camera.
Gear Links (as an affiliate of Amazon, eBay and B&H, these are affiliate links that allow us to earn fees from qualified purchases):
Pentax Q, Q10, Q7, Q-S1 Cameras: ebay.us/eSgIib
SVBONY SV503 70ED (420mm f/6): amzn.to/3NCIRdx
T-Mount to Pentax Q Mount Adapter: bhpho.to/4414RFY
2" to T-Mount Adapter: amzn.to/43kFmOY
Pentax IR Remote: bhpho.to/3XFDQ8F
SVBONY Finderscope: amzn.to/46CsLcM
Vlog/Astro Camera: bhpho.to/3ubMbkc
Main Astro Camera: bhpho.to/3ugfqSZ
Vlog/Wide Angle Astro Lens: bhpho.to/3oWfjfq
Fast Wide Angle Astro Lens: bhpho.to/3s1GDL9
Fast Standard Astro Lens: bhpho.to/3s1STve
Super Telephoto Lens: bhpho.to/3uiM7z8
Shotgun Mic: bhpho.to/3q1DPuw
Travel Tripod with Leveling Base: bhpho.to/37TL67T
Waterproof Carbon Fiber Tripod: bhpho.to/3LNDaYE
Wireless Shutter Remote: amzn.to/3wuS9yJ
Software:
Star trails processed in StarStaX: markus-enzweil...
Siril Open-Source Deep Sky Stacking and Processing: siril.org
Adobe CC: bhpho.to/3w6cn1k
Planning App: www.photopills...
Thanks, Ian, definitely very useful information and inspiring. Lately, I rarely see clear nights to photograph the stars. The moon's definitely more available and incredibly interesting to view and explore.
This! I forgot to mention that all of my close up moon shots were shot from my driveway in a pretty light polluted suburban neighborhood... no need to trek out to a super dark place!
Amazing video! One thing I can always attribute to Lonely Speck is the mindset that you can do so much "out of the box thinking" in the astrophotography hobby to achieve amazing results with minimal gear and purely relying on technique.
Thanks Mike! That's exactly what I always try to communicate with Lonely Speck. Astrophotography is more accessible than it has ever been and it never requires the biggest and best gear.
Nice video. I would really like to compliment on how good the editing is. Nice cinematic shots of the rig and tracked text. Beautiful!
Thanks! I've been learning a little bit more about editing and have put a lot of effort into improving the quality of my shots. Still a lot to learn and improve upon, but I'm glad you liked it!
@@LonelySpeck those are small things which can take a lot of time to edit, but they also make a huge difference in the whole video. I appriciate the effort you are puting and it doesnt go unnoticed.
You are a master at teaching. Beautifully produced and clear as a bell. Thank you very much.
Thanks so much @DanDill!!
Man I love your videos. So informative and so well done. Very polished technique and your shots came out fantastic. Love how you were able to do all this on a budget and inspire others to do so. Amazing work.
I had been thinking about using a Q for lunar work, thankful for this video!
Jump on it! It's not perfect, but there aren't really any options quite like it.
Excellent video. I appreciate that you have built a relatively low-cost rig that gives this kind of detail. Thanks!
Still looking forward to the video showing how you plan, shoot and process your photos!
Really appreciate the thoughtfulness and thoroughness on the subject - looking forward to the next video to see your processing, that’s where I definitely stumble the most!
Thanks so much! Processing is next, so there's more to come.
Fascinating about the Pentax! I had no idea this series exists. Agree - much more compact setup than a dedicated astro camera and computer.
what a great video. You always make such good and informative videos for astrophotography, it´s amazing. Thank you very much Ian!
My pleasure! Your words mean a lot to me and I'm so glad you enjoyed the video. -Ian
@@LonelySpeck you awakened the love for astrophotography in me pretty much. I follow your videos now for many years, probably like 2018? When you were still shooting with your sony a7s. I got much knowledge and inspiration from your videos, because in the end of every video: your pictures spoke for themselves. They always had a great quality and that was very inspiring.Thank you for bringing me into this great hobby!
Wow, what an awesome setup, I'm totally going to go this way I think.
Bought a pentax q years ago..bought a x100f, it was fun, sold it.. had my Canon set up, sold it.. currently have a a7iv.... and I still have my pentax q..its my street go too, such an awesome little camera
A full frame will give more information taking into account the quality of modern lenses and converters, plus, most importantly, you will get color thanks to raw video, and not a trivial gray Moon.
The camera with a 61 MP sensor is familiar to you.
The video itself is interesting and quite reasonable for a budget hobby.
Thank you!
Great vid! However, the shadow latitude of the images looks kind of banded- even in your original comparison with the Sony body. I am thinking this must be because of the Video codec and not the actual bit depth of the camera sensor? Also on your blended images, there seems to be significant bit of sensor "bloom".? Thanks, you are inspirational.
Great video Ian, really informative! I’m interested in going this route with my 360mm refractor. Is there much difference between the Q camera range (Q10, QS1) for this application? Thanks
Fuji's X-T5 or X-H2 with the Fuji 150-600 and 1.4x TC, (aprx 1200mm equiv), will be modern and get you fantastic Moon shots as well.
Yes, most systems have the ability to get to about 1200mm equivalent with super telephoto lenses and teleconverters, which is a great and more versatile, albeit more expensive way to get there! Fuji has a unique advantage in the APS-C realm since thier resolution is so high. 40MP on the X-H2 is killer for this stuff.
@@LonelySpeck would the X-T5 work as well?? Thank you!
@@helencogan2187 It should do as it has the same sensor as the X-H2. I don't think that the electronics are as fast as for the X-H2 but that tends to cause rolling shutter problems but that shouldn't cause any problems because of the camera should be static.
When looking at the Moon at high magnifications the Moon with wobble because of atmospheric distortions. If you are only interested in monochrome images putting an IR filter over the lens could reduce this distortion.
Another way of extending your focal length while keeping the size under control is a catadioptric telescope. For a budget of near $300 you can have a 1300 mm focal length Maksutov-Cassegrain which is probably even more compact than the refractor used by the author. Catadioptrics are usually quite dim, but they still excel at such bright targets like planets.
Looks like a macro setup with the camera and adapters for it! KISS use your Sony camera even the A7s/M2/M3 or better A7R2/3/4/5 but use the FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS Full-frame Telephoto Zoom G Lens + 2X Teleconverter and in APS-C mode you get 1800mm, then mount on a Sky-Watcher Star Adventure GTi and settings SS/ISO equal and set to 125 with f set to f/8-11 for sharpness, this setting also great to bracketing 5 @ +/- 3EV with center shot at .5s and with any lens 10/12/14/24mm excetra you will get a a bright foreground as well as a sharp moon above. But for stars also just stay at 600mm or 1200mm. I have used the FE 200-600 mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS Full-frame Telephoto Zoom G Lens to capture two lunar eclipses lasting from 5 to 8 hours from start to finish but only with hand cranking (I did not have a tracker). When the moon goes to orange/red yellow that's when you want to bracket 3 @ +/- 2ev and at 600mm (it moves) but you can crop in post, reason there will be bright glow crescent and no detail in the dark part, this allows for control of the highlights as well as brighter dark area and you will also get stars that say yes is as seen at night and not a copy moon. pay attention for the moon wobbles and is different from moonrise to moonset , so if someone does the trail of the eclipse some will have the same original but with different shades. Remember also you do not need to capture every second or minute just keep in frame as best as you can between shots. The FE 200-600 mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS Full-frame Telephoto Zoom G Lens is better than a telescope for it is adjustable mm, It is hard to reacquire once out of frame and going to 200 or 600 may need to be done. To save time and energy get a tracker and use a app on a pad to do the capture. Lastly you do not need to be in a dark place, I did my last on from my front sidewalk and the first out in a hayfield in 15 degrees temp and when at top elevation if off a a tracker you will be on your belly looking at the LCD screen and I note please have a articulating screen it will be the only way to see for your rig will be pointing straight up, lessons learned.
Great video mate! But how do you Photograph some stars or the nebula? Is it even possible with a camera like this?
would you be doing a video on how you proscces your image to get it to look high resolution?
Yes! My next video is all about shooting and processing!
@@LonelySpeck Glad I read the comments; this was my question too. Looking forward to seeing how you processed the images. By the way, this was a great video, really happy to see you putting new content out.
Hi! Thanks for sharing the video. I have a question..Could I use the Canon S120 it has an interchangeable lens and the sensor 1 1/7"
Ian, you amaze me! This is awesome. I understand what you are saying, in terms of using full frame and a zoom lens. The detail you have achieved here is remarkable.. I TOO, LOVE capturing the moon especially the crescent!! I have a fuji XT-2 will that work with the telescope and get the same results as the Pentax? Thank you again !
There is no link to a T-Mount to Pentax Q Mount Adapter. Can't build this rig without that piece.
awaiting for the how to video!
Any tips for post processing? Do you stack or make hdr images?
Fantastic information. Something I found with Luna photography is, the earth seems static and the sky rotates over head. Yes, I know that challenges the heliocentric model but....? Also there is displacement occurring....something like water? What do you see?
yes, the sky appear to rotate because the Earth rotates. You're standing on the rotating Earth so from your reference point, everything else appears to spin.
I'm terrible at math, what focal length telescope would I need for an APS-C sensor to get at least half to frame being the moon? (Nikon D3100)
Around 850-900mm focal length on an APS-C sensor would fill half the height of the frame with the moon.
Thank you for sharing the video. I was wondering...the Canon S120 has an equivalent sensor size and the lens is interchangeable...Do you think this combination could possibly work as well as the pentax? I'm a teacher and the pentax on ebay is 2k, way way way out of my budget. Please let me know. Thank you! Also, I love your pictures!!!
The Canon S120 does not, in fact, have an interchangeable lens and is not suitable for this type of build. The Pentax Q, Q10, Q7, or Q-S1 can be found for only $120-$300 USD on eBay, depending on the model and its condition.
@LonelySpeck what is i use a mobile phone camera to capture, will that works?
Thank you for this video. Could you please comment on the crop factor: I my opinion the focal length always stays the same for each lens regardless of the sensor size. 200mm is always 200mm. Only the field of view changes from sensor size to sensor size. Isn‘t the idea of enlarging the focal lenght wih a crop factor misleading? You might as well just crop the image from a larger sensor. But that does not mean more detail or actoially more focal lenght. Nils
You would be right that sensor size does not actually affect the focal length of the lens. The lens focal length does not actually change.
It is, however, very common in the photography industry, to the point of being a standard, to refer to how a lens's field of view appears relative to fields of view on a 35mm full-frame camera. This is usually called something like "35mm equivalent focal length" and that's what I used in this video to visualize the advantages of using a small sensor. Is it misleading? Maybe a little bit... but I didn't come up with the practice. There are still clear advantages when we account for pixel density of the sensors in question and that's why I think the industry still uses 35mm equivalence, along with the convenience of not having to remember that 24mm is a wide angle field of view on a 35mm full-frame sensor, while 8.8mm will get you the same field of view on a 1" sensor, while 5.2mm will get you the same thing on a 1/1.7" sensor. It's easier to just say that all of these have a 35mm equivalent field of view of a 24mm lens. Don't even get me started on sensor sizes naming conventions... 1" sensors are not 1 inch in size in any dimension whatsoever and it's a carryover naming convention from the days of vacuum tube imaging... basically the photo industry lies to us all and now we have to deal with it. Anyways, back to crop and field of view:
Generally, smaller sensors have a higher pixel density than larger ones and that's where the smaller sensor can find an advantage in terms of telephoto reach with any given lens (or telescope in this case) by comparison to cropping a larger sensor.
Ultimately, cropping from a larger sensor achieves the same thing in terms of narrowing the field of view, but doing this usually loses on resolution. Most large sensors are not as pixel dense so the resulting crop is likely to be very low resolution. If I were to crop my 24 Megapixel (MP) a7C sensor to the same field of view as my Pentax Q-S1, the resulting image is only about 1280px x 960px, or about 1.2MP. That's where using the small Q-S1 comes with an advantage: you get the crop but with a full sensor of 12MP which is 10x better than cropping my full-frame camera. Even cropping an ultra-high resolution full-frame camera, like the Sony a7RV, with its 61MP sensor, down to the size of the Q-S1's 1/1.7" sensor gives you a final image of only 2048px x 1536px which is only 3.1MP, or about 1/4 the resolution of the Q-S1.
The "Pentax Q" has pixel density of 49 mp/cm2
I don’t think my old telescope is that nice & I didn’t have any adapters.
What is a good SLR lens equivalent to use on a Nikon DX crop D300s. I have a 75-300 on a 2x converter for now
I have both full frame and smaller aps format
Can u recommend and Olympus add on to that very affordable telescope?
Nice, thanks! You didn't consider any of the Superzoom bridge cameras...ie the Nikon P1000 which does zoom to 3000mm?
I did! The Q-S1 + telescope kit ended up being cheaper than the p1000 by about $200. I would like to try that camera at some point and see how it compares.
@@LonelySpeck Sorry Ian, I missed that. I have a P1000, but I usually end up using a micro 4/3 camera and 800mm (equivalent) lens for moon shots. Now I’ve seen your video and seen the impressive Pentax results, I’ll have another go with my old Nikon.
Is there an advantage to using the setup you’re using on the tripod vs something like a ball joint with pano? Giving your exact setup a try
Definitely not in particular. More ideally I would have an equatorial mount or geared head. Ballheads can be troublesome with a heavy camera/lens.
@@LonelySpeck have you looked into affordable options for either of those?
*good job homie*
have you considered switching to R series camera from sony
Do you mean like an RX100 or RX10? Neither have the ability to remove the lens so that makes it less optimal for hooking to a telescope. Great cameras though!
does the svbony have a flat field? or is a flattener required? has the pentax q adaptor got the correct back spacing etc for a flat field?
It is not flat out to the edges of full frame. But because the field of view is so narrow on the Pentax Q sensor with the SV503 70ED, a field flattener is not necessary on the Pentax Q. I would recommend the SV193 field flattener on a full frame or APS-C camera.
11:27 why the lower part is sharp but the part on top seems like its out of focus.. because the details in the craters are less.. im struggling to get it all sharp
The angle of the sun is less steep at the top of that photo. Essentially, "top" of the moon in that pic is at high noon of the lunar day so everything is evenly illuminated which makes everything appear much lower contrast and thus lower in detail. The best contrast is always at the transition between the illuminated part and the shadowed part of the moon (the terminator line, or twilight zone) so that's where you always see the most detail in moon shots.
@@LonelySpeck make a lot of sense, thank you man.
Oh boy, "reach" from crop sensor cameras with tiny sensors is somehow better than a full frame sensor that gathers much more light because it's jammed with tiny pixels. What a load of absolute bollocks. I've seen wildlife photographers who seem to think using a crop sensor somehow gets them closer to their subject by effectively pre-cropping the image and making the subject look larger in the frame, but talking about a $200 4.5 crop camera being superior to a $2000 full frame camera takes the cake.
Wow, I didn't expect this to be hot button for anyone. Respectfully, this has nothing to do with gathering more light, but rather taking advantage of higher pixel density. 29MP/cm^2 vs 2.9MP/cm^2. That's 10x more pixels per area. It's literally the same thing as if I instead used a 240MP full frame sensor and then cropped to the dimensions of a 1/1.7" sensor. Example of shots from the same telescope with the a7C vs the Q-S1 at 4:10 . Feel free to judge for yourself.
@@LonelySpeck I guess the rules of physics disappeared when a tiny sensor can generate more detailed images than a big sensor. Can't wait until they develop a sensor the size of a fingernail that's a 100:1 crop and 500 megapixels.
@@Don-md6wnYeah, I couldn't fathom a modern smartphone out resolving my old 2.7MP Nikon D1, it'll never happen. /s
Also, which rules of physics are we talking about here? If a lens has the clear aperture and resolving power to support it, a higher density sensor always out resolves a lower density sensor, per unit area.
@@Don-md6wnAlso, your wish is my command: 😂m.dpreview.com/news/2895595650/samsung-reveals-plans-to-develop-576mp-smartphone-sensor-by-2025