Malka_1 wrote:
These look like paintings, each better than the next, but #1 is my favorite. NZ is one of few places outside of North America that I'd love to visit one day.
#1 was a particular challenge as I had to bracket the shot while the boat was moving away at fast speed. Had to toss most of my attempts but this one worked. Anyway, thanks for your nice comment!
Queso_Grandee wrote:
Absolutely fantastic shots! My favorite is #2.
What gear did you bring on your trip?
I appreciate your feedback. These were all taken with a Sony A7C and Zeiss Batis 18mm f2.8. Only the Milky Way was a mosaic with Sony A7III astromodified and Voigtländer 50mm f2.0.
If #2 is your favorite, you might want to check out this 2024 thread from user Aztatlan: https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1863679/
This was my primary inspiration to go there one day and try to get something similar. I got to admit his images are still more pleasing in my opinion, but I am grateful he described - roughly - where to find this and happy I got my own version now.
Gregg B. wrote:
The image with the Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds is stunning. Did you use an equatorial mount on that? Or multiple exposures?
Thanks so much!
Neither. Each panel is a single exposure and I used a small star tracker (Vixen Polarie U). An EQ mount - especially with GoTo - would have been nice, as polar alignment was a huge challenge. It was my first time trying this in the Southern Hemisphere and until the end I was not able to find the Southern Celestial Pole. As 50mm is somewhat still forgiving, eventually I just did a best-guess alignment and it does show in some panels, but post processing helped in hiding it for the most part.
DistantPlaces wrote:
Thanks for sharing. It is rare to see such old photographs. Must have been a lot of work to scan. I've only scanned in from film for one trip and it was so much effort I eventually gave up :-) There are more sophisticated methods nowadays so maybe it is time to reconsider and digitalize some more old stuff.
The vegetation in your image looks different to most places I went to - was that probably on the North Island?
This was taken in Australia. It was the only one from my trip on the computer I was using here.
My photos from both countries are stored somewhere on a external hard drive.
Scanning was very simple with a Canon 9000F and Nikon 4000xxCoolscan.
