telescopes and Fuji

Hello,
I am stuck between buying either the FujiFilm FinePix 3800 (new)

and the

FujiFilm FinePix S602Z

My main usages of the camera will need to be:

1. Hook up to a typical telescope and take long exposure pics.
2. Good zoom pictures
3. Good general family pictures
4. High Resolution (3 MP)

I am pretty sure both cameras can do 2, 3, 4 and I am not sure about 1 (telescope hookup) - any advice?

I realize I will have to buy an adapter to hook up to a typical telescope - I do not have a specific telescope in mind yet.
Thanks
Dave

Hi Dave,

I'm very interested in this subject too. On Internet you can find several sites where people build their own holder for a camera to a telescope most of them birdwatchers). As far as I could see, it wasn't too difficult. One o fthese days (but so much other things to do) I'm going to build my own. I already have a scope (a targetscope for gunshooting) but as far as I know there is no camera-adapter for it. My point is: buy the camera that suits you best (for me that is the 602) and find a solution to mount it on a scope, instead of the scope-mounting being the priority.

regards,
Tom

Hadfield said:

Hello,
I am stuck between buying either the FujiFilm FinePix 3800 (new)

and the

FujiFilm FinePix S602Z

My main usages of the camera will need to be:

1. Hook up to a typical telescope and take long exposure pics.
2. Good zoom pictures
3. Good general family pictures
4. High Resolution (3 MP)

I am pretty sure both cameras can do 2, 3, 4 and I am not sure
about 1 (telescope hookup) - any advice?

I realize I will have to buy an adapter to hook up to a typical
telescope - I do not have a specific telescope in mind yet.
Thanks
Dave

Click to expand...

Hadfield said:

1. Hook up to a typical telescope and take long exposure pics.

Click to expand...

Hadfield said:

I am pretty sure both cameras can do 2, 3, 4 and I am not sure
about 1 (telescope hookup) - any advice?

Click to expand...

The 602 does 15s exposures, + multi exposures.

The 3800 does... 3s?

--
cheers!

Gunn

Hadfield said:

Hello,
I am stuck between buying either the FujiFilm FinePix 3800 (new)

and the

FujiFilm FinePix S602Z

My main usages of the camera will need to be:

1. Hook up to a typical telescope and take long exposure pics.
2. Good zoom pictures
3. Good general family pictures
4. High Resolution (3 MP)

Check out http://www.eagleeyeuk.com/erol2eu/erol.html . They have a lot of info on adapters etc. They call it digiscoping. Good luck.

Click to expand...

Marv

Hadfield said:

I am pretty sure both cameras can do 2, 3, 4 and I am not sure
about 1 (telescope hookup) - any advice?

I realize I will have to buy an adapter to hook up to a typical
telescope - I do not have a specific telescope in mind yet.
Thanks
Dave

Click to expand...

Hadfield said:

Hello,
I am stuck between buying either the FujiFilm FinePix 3800 (new)

and the

FujiFilm FinePix S602Z

My main usages of the camera will need to be:

1. Hook up to a typical telescope and take long exposure pics.
2. Good zoom pictures
3. Good general family pictures
4. High Resolution (3 MP)

I am pretty sure both cameras can do 2, 3, 4 and I am not sure
about 1 (telescope hookup) - any advice?

I realize I will have to buy an adapter to hook up to a typical
telescope - I do not have a specific telescope in mind yet.
Thanks
Dave

Click to expand...

Hi Dave,

Though the 602 "can" be connected to a telescope, it's really not a great candidate for digiscoping. With it's rather large lens, it tends to require full zoom and sometimes into digital zoom to prevent vignetting. This is true even with the larger eyepieces. Eagle Eye in the U.K. is presently developing a lower power eyepiece which "may" work with the 602 and other reasonably large lens digicams, but the very nature of the larger lenses make it difficult to get really great digiscoping results. I have a large variety of digicams including the S602Z, and while it's a dynamite tool, if you really want to do digiscoping you might seriously consider spend your money on one of the small lens Nikon CP series like the CP995 or even better yet the CP4500. They really are the best by far for this purpose.

I've tested about every contemporary digicam for digiscoping purposes and the larger lens cameras are just at a distinct disadvantage. You could probably pick up a CP995 for what you will spend in trying to adapt the 602 to digiscoping and get much better overall results.

Best regards,

Lin
--
http://208.56.82.71

Member said:

Hi Dave,
Though the 602 "can" be connected to a telescope, it's really not a
great candidate for digiscoping. With it's rather large lens, it
tends to require full zoom and sometimes into digital zoom to
prevent vignetting. This is true even with the larger eyepieces.
Eagle Eye in the U.K. is presently developing a lower power
eyepiece which "may" work with the 602 and other reasonably large
lens digicams, but the very nature of the larger lenses make it
difficult to get really great digiscoping results. I have a large
variety of digicams including the S602Z, and while it's a dynamite
tool, if you really want to do digiscoping you might seriously
consider spend your money on one of the small lens Nikon CP series
like the CP995 or even better yet the CP4500. They really are the
best by far for this purpose.

I've tested about every contemporary digicam for digiscoping
purposes and the larger lens cameras are just at a distinct
disadvantage. You could probably pick up a CP995 for what you will
spend in trying to adapt the 602 to digiscoping and get much better
overall results.

Best regards,

Lin

Click to expand...

Hi,

Do you have any advise for those of us that already have the 602 (and really like it!!) but are unable to find a way to do this?

It seems that the entrance pupil of the 602 lens can not coincide with the instrument’s exit pupil (generally a few mm from the last element) and therefore I get massive vignetting.

Has anyone seen any adapter to be used instead of the instrument’s ocular that corrects this problem?
Thanks
George

(I am looking at the eagle eye site but have not seen that adapter yet, is it available now?)

gznyc said:

gznyc said:

Hi Dave,
Though the 602 "can" be connected to a telescope, it's really not a
great candidate for digiscoping. With it's rather large lens, it
tends to require full zoom and sometimes into digital zoom to
prevent vignetting. This is true even with the larger eyepieces.
Eagle Eye in the U.K. is presently developing a lower power
eyepiece which "may" work with the 602 and other reasonably large
lens digicams, but the very nature of the larger lenses make it
difficult to get really great digiscoping results. I have a large
variety of digicams including the S602Z, and while it's a dynamite
tool, if you really want to do digiscoping you might seriously
consider spend your money on one of the small lens Nikon CP series
like the CP995 or even better yet the CP4500. They really are the
best by far for this purpose.

I've tested about every contemporary digicam for digiscoping
purposes and the larger lens cameras are just at a distinct
disadvantage. You could probably pick up a CP995 for what you will
spend in trying to adapt the 602 to digiscoping and get much better
overall results.

Best regards,

Lin

Click to expand...

Hi,
Do you have any advise for those of us that already have the 602
(and really like it!!) but are unable to find a way to do this?
It seems that the entrance pupil of the 602 lens can not coincide
with the instrument’s exit pupil (generally a few mm from the last
element) and therefore I get massive vignetting.
Has anyone seen any adapter to be used instead of the instrument’s
ocular that corrects this problem?
Thanks
George
(I am looking at the eagle eye site but have not seen that adapter
yet, is it available now?)

Click to expand...

The Eagle Eye low power eyepiece is not yet in production, but it should be shortly. I really don't know of anything beyond a 3X tele adapter which works well with the S602 at this time. There are a couple companies making larger ocular eyepieces (William Optics and Scopetronics), but the power factor is probably a bit high to be really useful without using full zoom. The difficulty with this is that there is no room for zoom back to frame a subject. Here are links to these sites :

http://www.williamoptics.com/

http://www.scopetronics.com/

The "best" candidate will definitely be the Eagle Eye Digiscoping Eyepiece: see red print on opening page:

http://www.eagleeyeuk.com/

Lin
--
http://208.56.82.71

Member said:

The Eagle Eye low power eyepiece is not yet in production, but it
should be shortly. I really don't know of anything beyond a 3X tele
adapter which works well with the S602 at this time. There are a
couple companies making larger ocular eyepieces (William Optics and
Scopetronics), but the power factor is probably a bit high to be
really useful without using full zoom. The difficulty with this is
that there is no room for zoom back to frame a subject. Here are
links to these sites :

http://www.williamoptics.com/

http://www.scopetronics.com/

The "best" candidate will definitely be the Eagle Eye Digiscoping
Eyepiece: see red print on opening page:

http://www.eagleeyeuk.com/

Lin
--
http://208.56.82.71

Click to expand...

Thanks Lin, I will give them a try.
George

Well worth looking at is the Yahoo groups digital astro site. I have seen excellent results there from some larger lens cameras including Oly 2100 uZI. Vignetting can be a problem but can be edited out on many occasions.

When choosing your scope a long focal length will help to achieve greater magnification with the low power eyepieces. With my short tube refractor a 40mm eyepiece will only give about 12x mag, no good for planetary shots.

I would second the recomendation of the nikon 995/4500 it seems as many use these cameras. The small lens and long exposures make them a very good choice if astrophotography is your primary use but from what i have read almost any camera can produce good results.
Good luck Ian

gznyc said:

gznyc said:

The Eagle Eye low power eyepiece is not yet in production, but it
should be shortly. I really don't know of anything beyond a 3X tele
adapter which works well with the S602 at this time. There are a
couple companies making larger ocular eyepieces (William Optics and
Scopetronics), but the power factor is probably a bit high to be
really useful without using full zoom. The difficulty with this is
that there is no room for zoom back to frame a subject. Here are
links to these sites :

http://www.williamoptics.com/

http://www.scopetronics.com/

The "best" candidate will definitely be the Eagle Eye Digiscoping
Eyepiece: see red print on opening page:

http://www.eagleeyeuk.com/

Lin
--
http://208.56.82.71

Click to expand...

Thanks Lin, I will give them a try.
George

Click to expand...

--
http://www.pbase.com/glisglis

Hadfield said:

FujiFilm FinePix S602Z

1. Hook up to a typical telescope and take long exposure pics.

I realize I will have to buy an adapter to hook up to a typical
telescope - I do not have a specific telescope in mind yet.

Click to expand...

I don't have any experience (yet) with connecting the 602 to a telescope, but the Sony F707 also has a large lens, yet it is widely used for digiscoping. From reading the Sony Forum, it seems that most users are achieving the best success with the Scopetronix "MaxView40" eyepiece/T-adapter. The URL below will show you all of the various options that Scopetronix sells for attaching cameras to telescopes, scroll down to the middle of the page to see the MaxView40:

http://www.scopetronics.com/digitalcam.htm
http://www.scopetronics.com/gallery.htm

For some actual firsthand reports, search the Sony Forum for the word "Maxview". Here's one such thread:

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1009&message=3075259

It looks like the EagleEye product mentioned elsewhere in this thread will turn out to be a direct competitor to (and very similar to) the Maxview.

Good luck with your decision.

Jim Gilliland said:

Hadfield said:

FujiFilm FinePix S602Z

1. Hook up to a typical telescope and take long exposure pics.

I realize I will have to buy an adapter to hook up to a typical
telescope - I do not have a specific telescope in mind yet.

Click to expand...

I don't have any experience (yet) with connecting the 602 to a
telescope, but the Sony F707 also has a large lens, yet it is
widely used for digiscoping. From reading the Sony Forum, it seems
that most users are achieving the best success with the Scopetronix
"MaxView40" eyepiece/T-adapter. The URL below will show you all of
the various options that Scopetronix sells for attaching cameras to
telescopes, scroll down to the middle of the page to see the
MaxView40:

Click to expand...

Per above: The Sony F707 is NOT widely used for digiscoping. There are a few users on the Sony forum who use the F707 for astro-photography, but virtually none who do terrestrialy photography. Like the S602Z, the F707 is not really suited well for digiscoping.

"Digiscoping" is defined as using a telescope as a camera lens. It actually began with Laurence Poh in Maylasia who first used a Leica 77 with his Nikon CP camera and then moved to a Swarovski with the same cameras. Laurence takes beautiful pictures of birds and is widely known as the "Father of Digiscoping." Though any use of a camera with a telescope for a lens could rightly be called digiscoping, the primary use is for terrestrial purposes and the principal subjects are birds.

For every single person who uses their digiscoping combination for astro photography, there are probably twenty who use it for birding. If you do a quick search on the internet for "digiscoping" you will find numerous links to information, suggestions and samples.

Can you use an F707 or S602 for digiscoping? Yes. Should you? Probably not. For astro photography, as mentioned in the post above, you can use many different digicams connected to telescopes. For terrestrial photography there are just too many problems with large lens cameras to make effective use. For terrestrial digiscoping one absolutely needs some range of zoom to be effective. Only the small lens cameras (Nikon CP models at present) have the features which allow this.

When photographing the Moon or celestial objects, having dark corners (vignetting) is not a major issue. One either crops it out or lets it stay because it's not visible because of the blackness of space surrounding the target. For terrestrial use, the vignetting is an issue, but even more of an issue is the lack of zoom range. With the small lens cameras and large ocular eyepieces, there is a large range of vignette free zoom possible. This makes finding the subject much easier and allows framing without cropping. This is very important. Believe me when I tell you I have used virtually every digicam size and style for digiscoping. I have over 20 digicams representing a variety of Sony, Epson, Fuji, Nikon, Canon, Olympus and Minolta. In my experience, only the CP series Nikons are truly suitable for this endeavor for terrestrial purposes.

If astro photography is your goal, you "can" get decent results with a number of telescope/camera combinations. But if terrestrial digiscoping is going to be important to you, my advice is don't spend a lot of money trying to adapt your S602 or F707 for a purpose it's ill suited for.

Best regards,

Lin

http://208.56.82.71

Lin Evans said:

Per above: The Sony F707 is NOT widely used for digiscoping. There
are a few users on the Sony forum who use the F707 for
astro-photography, but virtually none who do terrestrialy
photography. Like the S602Z, the F707 is not really suited well for
digiscoping.

"Digiscoping" is defined as using a telescope as a camera lens. It
actually began with Laurence Poh in Maylasia who first used a Leica
77 with his Nikon CP camera and then moved to a Swarovski with the
same cameras. Laurence takes beautiful pictures of birds and is
widely known as the "Father of Digiscoping." Though any use of a
camera with a telescope for a lens could rightly be called
digiscoping, the primary use is for terrestrial purposes and the
principal subjects are birds.

For every single person who uses their digiscoping combination for
astro photography, there are probably twenty who use it for
birding. If you do a quick search on the internet for "digiscoping"
you will find numerous links to information, suggestions and
samples.

Can you use an F707 or S602 for digiscoping? Yes. Should you?
Probably not. For astro photography, as mentioned in the post
above, you can use many different digicams connected to telescopes.
For terrestrial photography there are just too many problems with
large lens cameras to make effective use. For terrestrial
digiscoping one absolutely needs some range of zoom to be
effective. Only the small lens cameras (Nikon CP models at present)
have the features which allow this.

When photographing the Moon or celestial objects, having dark
corners (vignetting) is not a major issue. One either crops it out
or lets it stay because it's not visible because of the blackness
of space surrounding the target. For terrestrial use, the
vignetting is an issue, but even more of an issue is the lack of
zoom range. With the small lens cameras and large ocular eyepieces,
there is a large range of vignette free zoom possible. This makes
finding the subject much easier and allows framing without
cropping. This is very important. Believe me when I tell you I have
used virtually every digicam size and style for digiscoping. I have
over 20 digicams representing a variety of Sony, Epson, Fuji,
Nikon, Canon, Olympus and Minolta. In my experience, only the CP
series Nikons are truly suitable for this endeavor for terrestrial
purposes.

If astro photography is your goal, you "can" get decent results
with a number of telescope/camera combinations. But if terrestrial
digiscoping is going to be important to you, my advice is don't
spend a lot of money trying to adapt your S602 or F707 for a
purpose it's ill suited for.

Best regards,

Lin

Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more with Lin. I have spent a lot of time with the 707 and fast refractors that are well-suited to astro and daytime use. While I had some success with the 707 and astro use, terrestrial use was really tough. This is for all the reasons Lin mentioned, plus just the ergonomic fact that the 707 has a big long nose and balance points that really make daytime use with a scope ungainly. It is doable, but not the best choice.

Best regards,
Joe Jones

http://www.pbase.com/jayseejay/digital_astrophotography

I second what Lin has said. I too got very poor resilts with a 6900 and an S602. But I have used an Ixus V, Nikon 885 Fuji 4700 and Fuji F601 with good results for both astronomy and birding with a Nikon Fieldscope. The main problem is camera shake and so fast shutter speeds and good light is essential. Here are two examples





--
Best Wishes,
Richard Dunn
Warwick UK
http://www.pbase.com/rmwd/galleries

Lin Evans said:

Per above: The Sony F707 is NOT widely used for digiscoping. There
are a few users on the Sony forum who use the F707 for
astro-photography, but virtually none who do terrestrialy
photography. Like the S602Z, the F707 is not really suited well for
digiscoping.

Click to expand...

I have no particular interest in using the 602 with a telescope in terrestrial applications, and with his mention of "long exposure pics", I doubt that Dave does either. I could be wrong.

In any event, your definition of digiscoping seems a bit narrow to me.

I see a lot of mention of the 707 for astro-digiscoping. A search here in the STF will give you LOTS of hits, and so will a search of the newsgroups and mailing lists. But you're right that the Nikon's are far more widely used, and for exactly the reasons you suggest.

Member said:

For every single person who uses their digiscoping combination for
astro photography, there are probably twenty who use it for
birding

Click to expand...

Maybe so, I don't know. Based on my experiences, I'd expect those numbers to be reversed. I know a lot more astrophotographers than I do bird photographers. But my sample may be skewed.

Member said:

Can you use an F707 or S602 for digiscoping? Yes. Should you?
Probably not.

Click to expand...

But that's not really the question, is it? The question that each of us asks is "what camera should I buy that best matches my overall mix of anticipated applications?". And in order to answer that question, it helps to know how well the camera will do for digiscoping - even if it isn't the first choice for that application.

I bought my S602 knowing full well that I would be using it to do a great many different things, one of them being astrophotography. If astrophotography were my only goal, I probably would have selected a different camera. But it's not my only goal, it's one of many. The S602 seems to be the best choice for my combined needs.

It may well be the best choice for Dave's needs as well. But in order to answer that question, he needs to know that there are people using cameras like this one to do astro-digiscoping, and that there are products like the MaxView40 on the market that will allow him to get good results.

Again, I don't intend this as an endorsement, just an FYI. I have not yet purchased one of these products, so I can't provide any first hand comments on its effectiveness with the 602.

So without taking away any of what Lin said, I'll reiterate the message of my prior post: Dave, there are people using cameras like this one to do digiscoping, and there are products available that make it possible. Lin is absolutely correct in her assertion that the 602 is not the best choice if digiscoping is your only application.

Jim Gilliland said:

Jim Gilliland said:

For every single person who uses their digiscoping combination for
astro photography, there are probably twenty who use it for
birding

Click to expand...

Maybe so, I don't know. Based on my experiences, I'd expect those
numbers to be reversed. I know a lot more astrophotographers than
I do bird photographers. But my sample may be skewed.

So without taking away any of what Lin said, I'll reiterate the
message of my prior post: Dave, there are people using cameras
like this one to do digiscoping, and there are products available
that make it possible. Lin is absolutely correct in her assertion
that the 602 is not the best choice if digiscoping is your only
application.

Click to expand...

Hi Jim,

I'm actually a "he" rather than a "she", but essentially you are correct that the S602Z can be used with the ScopeTronics MaxView 40 and the Fuji adapter with a step-down ring and will work fairly well for astro-photography.

Actually my definition of "digiscoping" is pretty broad. As I said "digiscoping is defined as using a telescope as a camera lens." Specifically it's using a "digital" camera with a telescope as a camera's telephoto lens. Since the question about connecting to a telescope was the very first of the issues, I just thought that it might be of primary importance and didn't want Dave to be disappointed with his expectations. If astro-photography is the intended use, it should do the job for him.

I love my S602Z - it's a great tool with lots of features and excellent images. I use it with a variety of adapters including the B-300 Olympus 1.7x and the TCON-300 3X for telephoto purposes.

The reason I caution people about digiscoping issues is that I've seen lots of disappointment (I'm the Digiscoping Moderator on Steve Saunders Forums) with those who have bought a new digital camera thinking that they would be able to do things with it and later finding out that their particular camera wasn't properly suited for their intended tasks. Digiscoping is really a fairly specialized use of a digital instrument and many of the folks who bought the Sony F707, Olympus C2100UZ, Fuji S602, S609 and other great cameras have been a bit disappointed with the results of trying to get some of the long range telephoto combinations to work. Other's who have purchased the CP series Nikons have been disappointed with their low light autofocus abilities and relatively slow lenses with mediocre low light performance.

Unfortunately, there isn't one digital camera which is "best" for all these different functions. Truthfully, if I were giving someone who had serious interests in digiscoping advice, I would say that if money is a big issue (that is where you can't really afford to buy two new cameras), buy a used Nikon CP950 on EBAY for your digiscoping and get an S602Z or one of the other great larger lens cameras for non-telephoto type uses. It's just really expensive to try to adapt the larger lens cameras to much over 600mm focal length uses, except for astro photography. Here's a picture of my S602Z connected to my Olympus TCON-300 (3x). It works very well at 630mm and you can hang the B-300 on the end of the TCON-300 and get excellent results at 1031mm. The downside is it's prohibitively expensive. The TCON-300 (3X) alone costs more than $500 and you still need to fabricate a mount. The one you see in the picture is one I designed for using the TCON-300 with my F707, S602, C2100UZ and E-100RS. To make this adapter, and do it right is expensive. I had intended to make them commercially available for about $49, but found that most people just don't want to put nearly $600 into getting 630mm out of their Fuji or 570mm from their F707, etc., so the project died in the prototype stage.

The bottom line is that because there are so many telephoto adapters available for the small lens Nikons, that it's cheaper to buy even a used one as a second camera than it is to go to all the trouble to adapt one of the larger lens cameras for more extreme telephoto use.

Best regards,

Lin



--
http://208.56.82.71

Lin Evans said:

I'm actually a "he" rather than a "she",

Click to expand...

My humblest apologies. My assumption was no doubt influenced by the fact that I have a sister named Linda, who we often call "Lin".

Member said:

but essentially you are
correct that the S602Z can be used with the ScopeTronics MaxView 40
and the Fuji adapter with a step-down ring and will work fairly
well for astro-photography.

Click to expand...

That's good to hear. I may be broke at the moment, but Christmas is right around the corner. ;-)

Member said:

The reason I caution people about digiscoping issues is that I've
seen lots of disappointment .....

Click to expand...

No doubt. I was just afraid that Dave would come away from this thread thinking that the 602 was hopeless for digiscoping. He'll have to confirm it for us, but his mention of long exposures suggests to me that astronomy is his goal. If so, the 602 may prove to be a workable choice for him.

Member said:

Unfortunately, there isn't one digital camera which is "best" for
all these different functions.

Click to expand...

Ain't it the truth!

The 602 is capable of getting some great shots of the moon and sun....but for astrophotgraphy the max 15 second shutter speed is a bit of a limitation. (not to mention, long exposure pics through a telescope are very challenging with any camera....film or CCD)

you do need a fair amount of eqipment (which i dont have unfortunatley), and even more patience to get good results.

I agree with you on the coolpix line of cameras..alot of spectacular images have come from these....the long expousres these offer are a real bonus....60secs for the 995 and upto 5 mins for 4500 i think.

But for anyone whos seriously looking to get into astrophotgraphy.....they might be better looking at CCD cameras specifically designed for this. (unless you look at the VERY expensive digital SLR's)

I have some pictures ive taken with my 602 and telescope here if your interested:

http://www.pbase.com/steven_alan

Byee, Steven

Steve (and all),

Let me second what Steve is saying. I do (and have done) astrophotography for quite some time. I have fortunate enough to have even been published with some (almost all on slide film specially processed). There are some real challenges to astrophotography and film cameras, that are complicated further with digitals. The short length of time the shutter can be left open is only a part. Objects such as the moon and sun (and even some bright stars) can be gotten due to brightness. Fainter objects such as galaxies, nebula, etc., take exposure times in the tens of minutes. Times can be reduced with specialized Digital CCD cameras made for Astrophotography (such as SBIG), but these are not inexpensive.

That is only a part of the problem. You must overcome two major hurdles as well. The first being light pollution. That is the Ambient glow of light in most areas (unfortunately), that will wash out (or "fog") long exposures. The second and more important is the earth's rotation. You cannot expose for multiple minutes and not see the effect on the image, unless you counteract the earth's rotation on it's axis. In order to do that, a camera must be set up on a equitorial mount. The mount is usually aligned with the North or South Celestial poles, and motors drive the telescope in a fashion to counteract the rotation, allowing you to stay fixed on a object. The greater the magnification, the more critical the alignment needs to be. Sorry for the long answer... Just years of "doing it" spilling out...

Jay S.

Steven Alan said:

The 602 is capable of getting some great shots of the moon and
sun....but for astrophotgraphy the max 15 second shutter speed is a
bit of a limitation. (not to mention, long exposure pics through a
telescope are very challenging with any camera....film or CCD)

you do need a fair amount of eqipment (which i dont have
unfortunatley), and even more patience to get good results.

I agree with you on the coolpix line of cameras..alot of
spectacular images have come from these....the long expousres these
offer are a real bonus....60secs for the 995 and upto 5 mins for
4500 i think.

But for anyone whos seriously looking to get into
astrophotgraphy.....they might be better looking at CCD cameras
specifically designed for this. (unless you look at the VERY
expensive digital SLR's)

I have some pictures ive taken with my 602 and telescope here if
your interested:

http://www.pbase.com/steven_alan

Byee, Steven

Click to expand...

I've had pretty good luck with my 9X lens on my 6900. Its not a telescope, but gives me 1890mm telephoto. It is not perfect, but some would rather get the shot, then not at all.

Paul R.
E-mail at: [email protected]

Hadfield said:

Hello,
I am stuck between buying either the FujiFilm FinePix 3800 (new)

and the

FujiFilm FinePix S602Z

My main usages of the camera will need to be:

1. Hook up to a typical telescope and take long exposure pics.
2. Good zoom pictures
3. Good general family pictures
4. High Resolution (3 MP)

I am pretty sure both cameras can do 2, 3, 4 and I am not sure
about 1 (telescope hookup) - any advice?

I realize I will have to buy an adapter to hook up to a typical
telescope - I do not have a specific telescope in mind yet.
Thanks
Dave

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Jay Sottolano said:

with digitals. The short length of time the shutter can be left
open is only a part. Objects such as the moon and sun (and even
some bright stars) can be gotten due to brightness. Fainter
objects such as galaxies, nebula, etc., take exposure times in the
tens of minutes. Times can be reduced with specialized Digital CCD

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Jay S. said:

out (or "fog") long exposures. The second and more important is
the earth's rotation. You cannot expose for multiple minutes and
not see the effect on the image, unless you counteract the earth's
rotation on it's axis. In order to do that, a camera must be set

Click to expand...

A good solution for this should be multiple exposures taken, and
combined after alignment! Of course you must know about this,
have you done any?

--
cheers!

Gunn