photography

C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy)

C/2014 Q2 animation

I trek out to a fairly dark sky site on the odd Friday evening to partake of some amateur astronomy at an observatory in the Dandenong ranges.

iOptron SkytrackerA few weeks ago, we decided to have a go at locating what was then a fairly dim object, C/2014 Q2. We found it with binoculars and in a relatively small (10") telescope. I'd just gotten a tripod-mounted motor drive for my DSLR, so of course we decided to have a go at imaging the comet.

iPhotography Widget

Barringer Crater - olloclip fisheye

A while ago, I was contacted by MobileZap, a reseller of mobile phone accessories and asked if I was interested in reviewing an iPhone zoom lens attachment. Unfortunately the widget only attached to the iPhone 5S - mine's a 5c - so I wasn't able to. I also mostly do wide angle photography (landscapes) so a zoom lens would be sort of wasted on me anyway.

When browsing the website, I did stumble across the olloclip wide-angle/fisheye/macro lens kit, which piqued my interest. When I mentioned this, they sent me one and asked me to write a blog about my experiences using it. Happily, I was about to go on a road trip past some very large holes in the ground where it would come it very handly indeed!

camera play time

A few weeks back, when Donna had just gotten her new camera (Nikon D80) I was playing around at night in the suburbs, trying to do some star field shots.

I put the camera on a tripod and set it to the longest possible exposure (30 seconds) and found I needed the self-timer as well, so the vibrations from my pushing the shutter button would have time to die out. With the wide angle lens and this exposure time limitation, I think I did a relatively decent job on the southern cross.