E-PM2 + 12mm Samyang + Remote Trigger for Astrophotography?

Chumby wrote:

Thanks for that Scott.

No worries.

By the way, did you know there was an astrophotography talk forum on dpreview? It might be worth posting the same questions in there.

You make some interesting observations. Have you tried the 17mm 1.8 for astrophotography?Wide enough? I purchased the 12mm Samyang as it is has really nice write up's for working with the stars.

No, I haven't used the 17/1.8 for astrophotography yet. The reason is that I'm living in east Asia, and the skies here are too hazy. However, I'm returning to New Zealand in October to start my hike, and NZ has some of the clearest night skies in the world.

There are two reasons I suggested the 17/1.8.

The first is that it's much smaller and half the weight of the Samyang, and your initial post stated that weight was a concern for you.

The second reason I suggested the 17/1.8 is that a couple of weeks ago I read an article written by an amazingly-good astrophotographer who suggested that lens for M43 users. Unfortunately, I can't remember the site. However, a 30-second exposure at f1.8, ISO 1600 should produce the goods with the 17mm. Wider focal lengths allow for longer exposures (because star trails are less obvious), so the Samyang should be fine even though it is only f2.

Your shots are amazing in that Flickr feed - were they all taken with m4/3? Do you do much post processing?

Thanks.

All of the shots in the Flickr feed were taken with m43 gear, apart from those shots several pages back that were taken more than four years ago. The early shots were taken with Nikon and Canon gear.

In 2011 I started shooting exclusively in Raw, and I have been post-processing all of my images since then.

Cheers
Chumby