World told to brace for 'severe geomagnetic storm' today!

[Ray Proudfoot 9,048]

1 hour ago, DD_Arthur said:

Taken by my wife on Friday evening from our back garden - looking eastwards too - on her iphone....something or other. 

While she merely waved her phone in the right direction and pressed the button, I was hunting around for my tripod and putting a charged battery in my Canon DSLR.  By the time I got it all together the light show was over. 

Nice shot. Apparently the iPhone has many features allowing control over the exposure time unlike my Motorola that used the bloody flash on Friday night! 😂

Set everything up last night but high cirrus and a no-show of the aurora meant it was a wasted effort. But I did get a reasonable shot of the setting crescent moon. Not sure any smartphone would manage that. There's still a place for serious cameras.

[martin-w 3,267]

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Not sure any smartphone would manage that. There's still a place for serious cameras.

 

Actually, it's quite surprising what the latest smartphones can do. Limited by the sensor size, of course.

A nice Cannon R4 would obviously be superior. 

[Ray Proudfoot 9,048]

2 hours ago, martin-w said:

 

Actually, it's quite surprising what the latest smartphones can do. Limited by the sensor size, of course.

A nice Canon R4 would obviously be superior. 

Yes, the specs surprised me but three big drawbacks for me. 1) The screen is a pain on sunny days and eats battery life. 2) No RAW format for editing. 3) No interchangeable lenses.

Clearly two different camps. I owned Olympus OM2 for over 20 years before switching to Nikon.

[martin-w 3,267]

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Clearly two different camps. I owned Olympus OM2 for over 20 years before switching to Nikon.

 

I was a proffesional photographer back in the day, Ray.

Sinar 5X4 studio camera, Bronica 6X6 roll film SLR, Hasalblad 6X6, Nikon SLR. Sloshing stuff around in dev tanks in those days, crossing your fingers it comes out okay. 

I always favoured Cannon for my SLR's after giving up the pro stuff.

Smartphones are a pain, re the screen. I have to boost the brightness. I was photographing a cruise ship the other day, just arriving out of the mist, could barely see it. They should make an accessory optical viewfinder.

There are some handy gadgets for them, like thermal etc.

Edited May 12 by martin-w

[Ray Proudfoot 9,048]

@martin-w, I hope it’s your spell checker that’s calling it a gun instead of a camera make. 😉

Lots of quality kit there. Never had large or medium format cameras. Too expensive and too heavy.

I bought a 200-500mm Nikkor but it needs a tripod or monopod. Or I need to go to the gym. 🤣

[martin-w 3,267]

38 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I hope it’s your spell checker that’s calling it a gun instead of a camera make.

 

You can never tell with me.

Certainly expensive and heavy, especially the Sinar. Huge thing on a hefty stand. For studio use. The 5X4 sheet film was loaded into dark slides and then inserted into the back of the camera. There was a notch on the right hand side to identify which side the emulsion was on. It was a case of attaching the exposed film to a hanger and dunking it in tanks of dev, stop bath and fixer. The electric shock I received from a light box stupidly mounted above the wash tank is an interesting story. 🤔 

[109Sqn 1,598]

On 5/11/2024 at 10:49 AM, Ray Proudfoot said:

But one thing remains. Why did the photos on this lad’s phone look so convincing when to the naked eye there was no colour?

Put simply, a digital sensor, even that on a phone, can capture more light than the naked eye and so the colours will be more visible. I suspect that looking straight up, factors such as refraction may come into play, meaning it's even less likely the eye will pick up much compared to looking towards the horizon.

I've yet to see the aurora borealis personally - too much light pollution locally. Even cycling to the local(ish) private estate leads to underwhelming night sky shots as its bounded by the airport, main route to Fife and the Fife coastline itself. It can be too dark to see your feet yet with too bright a sky to see enough detail overhead.

 

This Light pollution map is very useful but also sadly shows the mess we make of our skies which has a negative affect on wildlife. I used to be able to go outside and watch bats circling the eaves, but the downside of the more energy efficient LEDs is that the bats seem to have been driven away as they are blinded by the stronger light and also associate brightly lit areas with the risk of predatory birds.

[IanHarrison 527]

On 5/12/2024 at 4:03 PM, martin-w said:

 

Actually, it's quite surprising what the latest smartphones can do. Limited by the sensor size, of course.

A nice Cannon R4 would obviously be superior. 

In theory, they can do it all. But I find that it is far simpler to hold a proper camera and not have to tap a screen to take a picture or worry if I wobbled too much.

[martin-w 3,267]

5 hours ago, IanHarrison said:

In theory, they can do it all. But I find that it is far simpler to hold a proper camera and not have to tap a screen to take a picture or worry if I wobbled too much.

 

Wobbling isn't really a huge issue with Smartphones, as they have pretty good image stabilization now. The sensors are small though, so a full size SLR with a big sensor has a big advantage. My S21 Ultra has a 100X zoom, but its very blurry at such a big magnification.

 

[109Sqn 1,598]

I always advise people not to use digital zoom, such as on smartphones and digital compact cameras with fixed lenses. In simple terms, they enlarge the individual pixels to give the impression of zooming in. Far better to use the normal setting and then crop the photograph later as you can't go back after creating that blurry 'zoomed' image. That way you have both the original file and the cropped image.

As a photographer, it also irks me that phone manufacturers tout optical 'zoom' lenses on their products when they actually have telephoto lenses. Big difference - a zoom offers variable magnification, a telephoto is a fixed magnification. Plus, you can have wide angle zooms too, so the use of the word 'zoom' is doubly incorrect in that instance. Unfortunately it has led to people misusing the term 'zoom' as they simply follow the incorrect convention perpetuated by the manufacturers.

Stepping off my soap box now!😌

                                                 

[n4gix 4,961]

On 5/12/2024 at 12:53 PM, martin-w said:

Sinar 5X4 studio camera, Bronica 6X6 roll film SLR, Hasalblad 6X6, Nikon SLR. Sloshing stuff around in dev tanks in those days, crossing your fingers it comes out okay. 

That was a very nice collection of cameras. But the Nikon is the only camera that's celebrated by name in a wildly popular song...

The late Paul Simon's catchy tune "Kodachrome"

Quote

I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama don't take my Kodachrome away