Hey All! LOOOOOOONG time no post for me! Ironically in my time away I have gone semi-pro with my photography, which is fun! So after success in 2013 (see my Avatar!), the full moon wrecking it in 2014 and clouds in 2015 I was excited to be visiting Maryland this Summer where I knew I would find some dark skies! And as luck would have it, clear skies too! I drove almost 2 hours to Blackwater National Wildlife Reserve having scouted some locations via Google Street View. My first location was great for subject matter (bridge), however, the car park had a street lamp in it (to my surprise, given it is in the middle of no where!!). As it happens, it cast a nice bit of light on the bridge, but I was limited to shooting in 1 direction and certainly not straight up. None the less, I got a shooting star in one shot and a nice portrait shot of the bridge/sky. The glow in the first is the town of Cambridge some 15 miles away. From here I moved to location 2, which was properly dark, and by now (2am) the moon had also fully set. The experience was fantastic, the Milky Way was visible with the naked eye with ease. I've never managed to get to such a dark sky (as the UK is so densely populated). This first one does have a faint shooting star, just to the right of the lit trees (light painted briefly with my maglite)... No shooting star here, but pretty sweet Milky Way shot! Another Milky Way, again a faint shooter, below the galaxy running parallel with it... All were shot on the A6000+SEL16F28, @F2.8, ISO800-2500, 20-30 seconds exposure. Hope you enjoyed. Feel free to post any of the ones you guys got (I saw one or two in the pic-a-day thread). Cheers!
Ok. So how did u focus this lens in the dark. GREAT Milky way shot! Sent from my LG-V500 using Tapatalk
Just using the on screen distance gauge that pops up as you manual focus. The hyperfocal distance of the lens @F2.8 is only 4.5 meters so I just set to focus to somewhere above that, I used 10m from memory.
I did quite a bit of research to find a REALLY dark area! Namely looking at this list of known star gazing spots in Maryland (other States are covered!) Clear Sky Charts in Maryland (List) Aside from that, this light pollution overlay on Google Maps is pretty handy Light Pollution Atlas 2006
Looks like this; I suspect the Nex-5*'s don't have it as you say. It's a really handy feature though!
wow, def not! why can't we get updates SONY! DAFAQ EDIT: I can confirm, it's def in the software on my a7ii. jeez sony what a failure / bad practice i think i'm going to have to write a letter or two EDIT2: Hi Matt, Thank you for contacting The Sony Alpha Email Response Team. I understand that you want to know when is the NEX5R end of support and also you want to know if camera still has a firmware update and when it will be release. I would like to take the opportunity to help you on this issue. I apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you. With regard to your concern, we don't have specific date regarding the end of support for NEX5R. In fact we still support the camera model, the last firmware update of the camera was released last 2014. And as of now, we don't have specific details when is the new firmware update release. Any updates and news about the camera will be posted at our esupport website. In addition, regarding your input about the distance gauge features and the Software Development Kit (SDK) are invaluable to the development of our products. We want you to know that we appreciate you bringing this to our attention, and will forward your message to our support group for review. Should there be any update released for the NEX series , it will be posted on the Sony US support website link below. Sony eSupport - NEX-5R - Support If you still need further assistance, please get in touch with our Live-assist Chat support at: Chat: http://www.docs.sony.com/startchat.asp?modelnum=®ion_id=1&chat=1 Should you have any technical questions or concerns, please feel free to send us an email. Thank you for choosing Sony. Sincerely, Carlo C8DT Sony Alpha Email Response Team We need more people asking for SDK I don't hold my breath for just my one message being the start of change. But maybe a petition is in order.
fyi i'm going to start a petition somewhere, might need some help on the wording .. i'll start a new thread
