RE: [APML] Astrophotography 2004 - Price Shock Horror

["Jeff Ball" <jeffball@astro-photography.com>]

Hi Chris,
Many of the thoughts that I have are embodied in an ongoing essay
capturing my thoughts on astrophotography at this link

http://www.astro-photography.com/tips.htm


Chris, I want to encourage all of us on APML to continue to pursue
excellence in imaging with film.  I do believe that much is still left
to be done with film.  Do I think that film images can be better today
than they were 5 years ago?  Yes!  Heck, the newer scanners and
highlight/shadow function in Photoshop alone can make an image better
today.  Do I think that film images can be better than CCD images?  Yes.
Granted, with film, we must pick and choose our targets and framing
properly, but I do believe that a properly imaged film image can be
"prettier" than a CCD image.  Now, defining "prettier" is pretty hard
isn't it?  Remember, I don't limit my definition of a great image to
"resolution" or "FWHM" numbers.  

The other detectors will have their own work to present, but it is us on
APML left to present the best of film in today's imaging world.  I want
to encourage others to get out the GM8 or Vixen and get a piggyback
mount and put the Om1 on infinity with some E200 or E100S or Provia and
capture some great stuff.  

In a way, I think the CCD popularity may be an advantage to the film
photographer.  Making a great image sometimes is simply giving the
viewer a different perspective.  Go to the SBIG list and look at how
many M51's were posted and the image size.  Not much variation.  It then
boils down to processing and seeing.  Well, if you are not blessed with
good seeing you are already at a disadvantage.  Look at what Chris Cook
did with the 16mm shot, and I believe that may be a very moderately
priced lens by my reading of the posts.  A modified mount for the camera
gives us a little different perspective on the scene and really works
well.  It is my experience that when things are done very well by
others, it isn't that they have a totally different or landmark
approach.  It is more likely that they have modified or tweaked
something a hair here or there and the result is an improvement over the
baseline.  I think we can tweak film to go another notch up on the
competency scale.  I hope list members get some nice weather to work
with in the next dark moon.  Take care.

Best regards,
Jeff Ball
www.astro-photography.com
 

-----Original Message-----
From: astro-photo-bounces@seds.org [mailto:astro-photo-bounces@seds.org]
On Behalf Of Chris Schur
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2004 4:35 PM
To: astro-photo@seds.org
Subject: [APML] Astrophotography 2004 - Price Shock Horror

Hi all,

The trend that seems to be geling is that most imagers
of today must be both competent in both making money
as well as have the rudiments of sky shooting skills. 

I love change, but is this really fair? 

Any comments ?

 

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