Re: [APML] Another beginner

["Eddie Guscott" <eddie.guscott@blueyonder.co.uk>]

Hi Lewis

Sounds like you're not a million miles from me (I'm in Stanford-le-Hope,
Essex).

I class my self as a beginner in astrophotography (this list is terrific for
advice/help and encouragement),
even though I'm starting to get some "average" results with film photography
through a telescope.

Firstly, what sort of SLR are you using. You should be able to get some good
results even with a
fixed tripod setup.

If you are using, say a 50mm lens, in addition to shooting with the lens
wide open, try stopping it
down one or two stops (if it's f1.8, you can try f2.8 or f4.), if it's a
f2.8 lens, try f4 or f5.6).

At 11pm around here, this time of year, the sky is not properly dark, but
you should get some
good results (you should easily record more stars than you can see with the
naked eye).

Try some fairly fast film to start with (colour slide film gives good
results), say ISO800 or ISO1000
with exposures starting at, say 10 seconds (on a fixed tripod), up to about
30 seconds. With a
50mm lens, you shouldn't detect any significant star movement on the film.
Expect to get through
1 or 2 rolls of film in this experimentation stage, but you'll soon get good
results.

Shoot as far away from city lights as possible (your nearest golf course,
park etc. might be
suitable without having to travel too far).

Let me know your results.

As for processing, I use a lab in Basildon, Essex who does same day
processing of film/slides,
and will accept any instructions given with regard to developing/cutting
negatives etc. I'm sure you
must have a local lab, just look in the Yellow Pages under Film Processing.
Most labs are fairly
small and welcome new business. Not all can offer scanned pictures on a CD
though.

I would be willing to scan some negatives/slides for you. If you want to
contact me offline, I'll give
you my postal address.

Hope this helps some

Eddie Guscott

----- Original Message -----
From: "Lewis V. Bishop" <lewis.bishop@red7consulting.co.uk>
To: <astro-photo@seds.org>
Sent: Saturday, June 15, 2002 5:12 PM
Subject: [APML] Another beginner


> Hello everyone,
>
> Another beginner question (or a few anyway) i'm afraid - i've read through
a lot of the archives but just has some further questions. Firstly i guess
some info about me. I live at the edge of London where there is a lot of
light pollution and of course cloud. I am new to astronomy and thought
astrophotography would be a good way for me to remember exactly what i'm
looking at. For this reason i have started by taking fixed tripod shots of
constellations. I'm new to manual photography aswell - have had an SLR for 5
years or so but always used it on automatic so please excuse any really
stupid questions. My first 2 sets of images have been extremely
disappointing.
>
> Some of my images - even taken at 11pm i have images that look as though
they were taken late afternoon - i'm using a postal developer that will not
print images but just send to CD (not kodak photo cd but max 4mb images -
forget the exact res). I'm guessing that the developers have processed the
images slightly in order to get them into JPG format on CD. Is anybody
willing to scan in a couple of negatives and send me some raw images so that
i can see differnces between the images supplied by the developer and raw
scans? With the results that i have seen so far i would be prepared to get a
35mm scanner if it gives better results.
>
> Is anybody using a postal development service in the UK that will not cut
negatives? I've not had any luck with any of them? Also, does anyone local
have good dark sites they use and are there any meetings or star
parties/meetings?
>
> My first 2 sets of images (had them saved on CD in JPG format by the
developer - not Kodak Photo CD) have been VERY disappointing - anyone got
any tips? Or is anybody willing to scan in a couple of negatives and send me
some raw images? With the results that i have seen so far i would be
prepared to get a 35mm scanner if it gives better results. Just what is
involved in processing a role of 35mm film?
>
> Many thanks for taking time to help me!
>
> Lewis.
>
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