Lost Through the Lens is soon to be Lost in Space

CREDIT: Paul LeFevre

That's right.

For years now I've wanted to take photos of fireworks, on New Years Eve I never had a clear view of them. What do fireworks have to do with Space? Well, the camera settings are similar and it was the beginning of my interests of taking photos of things in the night sky.

A year or two ago I happened to witness a lunar eclipse. I attempted to take photos with my DSLR and 70mm lens, but the photos were of poor quality. The settings were all wrong and 70mm just wasn't long enough.

The next day Flickr.com was spammed with hundreds of lunar eclipse photos. That day my love for astronomy was born...or reignited from my Primary School days.

Not long ago I happened across Dark Atmospheres photography - a website of Roth Ritter's photography. His astronomy photos were spectacular! There were close-ups of the craters on the Moon, the beautiful red nebula and clusters of stars. I was inspired.

I looked up the camera he used and was taken aback by the price of it, but then I found out astrophotography doesn't have cost an arm and a leg. To get some really fantastic photos of the Universe you only need to pay $2000-$3000 on an auto tracking telescope and less than $100 on a camera adapter. Sometimes you don't even need an adapter to take photos. If you've got your own tripod (like I do) just sit your DSLR on that and set it up so the camera lens is near the eyepiece and use Live View as a lovely little shortcut. Mind you, this is a more professional set up.

A novice astrophotography set up just requires a 5"- 8" telescope (that is the amount of light that can enter the telescope - the larger the better) and like photography it needs a large f/stop. In the taking photos on Earth world (especially concert photographers) we like our f stops to be between f/1.2-f/2.0. In astrophotography that kind of f stop is going to be expensive. Something like f/5 or 6 is good enough.

Depending on where you are buying it from the cost of this telescope would be $500-$800. It depends on what you need and the build of the model. That's cheaper than a beginner level SLR and it could get you a nice non-L telephoto lens.

The most important part is your skill with a telescope and the amount of patience you need to get a photo of objects in Space. It can take hours.

I like to compare cameras (DSLRs) to telescopes. It makes it easier to separate the awesome from the crap.

Telescopes can come cheap like digital point and shoot cameras. Similarly to them they don't have the best optics, they may boast a big magnification (much like digital zoom) and their batteries don't last long (if your telescope is an auto tracker it takes 8 AA batteries).

You also got your DSLR range. The best in the camera world are the Canon, Nikon, Pentax and Olympus. In the telescope world it's the Dobsonian, Celestron, SCT and Orion.

I've adopted the idea that the Dobsonian is a Canon EOS of the telescope world. Their L Series is the Dobsonian 12" collapsable auto tracker, and it costs as much. In fact I'd go as far to call it the 5D.

The one I've chosen to buy is a Dobsonian 8" Skywatcher Newtonian Reflector and to me it's a Canon 350D (or a 500D to those new to Canon SLRs).

In 2006 I bought my DSLR. It was 8 megapixels so I compare this to the '8 inches' in my Dosonian. Did I just say 'my'? Oh well. Mega pixels are important in cameras, inches are important in telescopes. Their is also the build of the telescope to consider, just like the build of lenses for cameras. Remember my boasting of the L Series? Imagine if Canon started making L Series telescopes? Oh the weight, oh the creamy colours of the nebula.

But I shall be using my Canon 40D (a step up from a beginner level SLR) to take astrophotographs and later, much much later a 7D.

I've decided to purchase the Dobsonian 8" on March 2nd, 2010 because it's four years to the day I got my Canon 350D. I sure do love patterns!

It's funny, seasoned astronomers buy their telescope kit piece by piece and that's just what I did when I bought my second DSLR. It's cheaper and you get the best out of your equipment. Will the same happen when I purchase a second telescope? Somewhere my mum just screamed.

Another thing astronomers do is build their own telescope. Yeah...we don't do that in the photography world. Could we?

Well now I've got a lot of cash to save, time to wait, and technical astronomy terms to learn. Oh and I really need to make sure which constellation is which.

Note: I'm a noob. In fact a pre-noob, because I'm yet to have my first telescope. So I've probably got a lot of info on telescopes wrong. It's all very confusing. I'll get it eventually. So keep your criticism to yourself, seasoned astronomers.

In other news: I shall be photographing Tim Rogers on friday.

Festival shoots - not for the novice

I've been reading a lot around the Soundwave Festival forum of people that want photo passes. If they had experience they need not to ask it, so I assume they are new to it.
Sure, at first glance shooting a festival sounds like a fun experience but for me being a punter and a shooter are two completely different experiences. There are things one must know such as the basic rules; three songs no flash, take photos from where security/promoters tell you to, and the unwritten rules of respecting other photographers. If you don't know about 3 songs no flash (which is the amount of time a photographer can shoot a band for) then you really aren't experienced enough for a festival. I found out about 3 songs no flash at Coca Cola Live n' Local 2006, and back then it was really hard for me to get any decent photos in that short time. Now that I'm used to it I can be done in two songs or less.
Respecting security is something I reluctantly do. I don't want to give myself or the comapny I shoot for a bad name. So, suck it up and just do what they say, unless they are in the wrong, e.g at Soundwave Sydney 2008 they wouldn't let us in the photo pit at stage 2 so we had to go find their boss to set it straight. When it came time to take photos of Motion City Soundtrack they still wouldn't let us but Matt Booy came to the rescue.
Don't be a snobbish shooter: move out of the way if another photographer wants to shoot from where you are standing. Do not shove them, but politely say ''cuse me" which I find works quite well. If you accidently bump them or get in their shot say sorry. Manners are very important in the photo pit. At gigs and festivals especially there's a lot of waiting time so take the time to chat with the other photographers and ask who they are shooting for. If you are rude to the other photographers then your reputation is on the line.
Something else that novices may not consider is what equipment to use. At Soundwave 2008 my earlier shots didn't work out that well and I had to play around with my settings a bit. I was using the very heavy but brilliant 24-70m f/2.8 L lens, which is great but when the light gets too low it starts to fail. A 50mm f/1.8 or 1.4 is good for when the light gets low. I did manage to get a few ok photos with my 24-70 at night. Actually for my next festival shoot I might just purchase the 85mm f/1.8. It's a beaut!
Flash photography isn't allowed at festivals but some shooters get away with using a hot shoe flash (not a built in one - never use that at a gig with such spectacular lighting). Even though I'm a non-flash person I do encourage the use of a hot shoe flash if you know how to work it. Using a lens between 1.2-1.8 will get you better results because you'll be able to see the stage lighting a whole lot more.
Another point to consider is your health. Festivals are usually on very hot days and a photographer will have to be on their feet the whole time, with barely any time for lunch and dinner. Make sure you eat something though. I recommend eating well, exercising and lifting weights a few months before you shoot a festival (L glass is very heavy).
A few alcoholic beverages are ok, but if you're shooting for a magazine/website then don't overdo it. If you screw up your shots you may never get the chance to shoot for that company again.
Most importantly make yourself a shooting timetable. What I did was calculate how many minutes I'd get to shoot (10-15) and work out how much time I have to get to the next stage. Organising a break time is very important to.

Deadlines: a deadline for a festival shooter is something like 9am the next morning, or some companies may give you a bit more time, but nothing over 24 hours. I was fortunate to not get one with Bombshellzine but I still sent my photos off a few days later.

So you see not everyone that wants to shoot a festival can. It's stressful, tiring and feels more like work than fun. A punter just has to obey venue rules and pretty much do what they want. Get drunk? Yeah whatever. Getting to shoot can be hard to. Not only do you need a good portfolio and you need to convince your editor that you're reliable but you have to get in before another photographer does. If you haven't heard back in weeks or months don't fret - you will probably hear back a week before the event, or in my case the day of the event. It's a stressful job but the photos are rewarding enough.

I have contacted two comapines to shoot Soundwave 2010 for. If that doesn't work out then I still have two more to contact.

Canon Photo5 Competition

So I got my box today, twenty or so minutes after I found out that I have another photo project, but more on that later.

The Canon Photo5 Competition starts with a cardboard box and inside there are 5 different photographic categories. For example there is an action one where you must capture paint splattering, another is a close-up of hundreds and thousands and another involves a person and a pair of spectacles. I'm racking my brains right now trying to figure out how best to present these. It's going to be a lot of fun though.

What I need is a volunteer for the spectacles/ portrait category. If any of my friends want to be involved in that let me know. It'll have to be done in the next couple of weeks. Entries close November 1st.

Tomorrow I'm going to attempt the Bokeh/ experiment category. 

The prize is a Canon 5D Mark II, which is perhaps the best model Canon has. 

The other news is that I have been chosen to display some live band photos for Disability Week in December. So I have to print out some more images to show Essential Personnel (my job network).