Best shoot taken with manual focus lenses

Fretless Pete · Joined: 12 Oct 2009 Posts: 171 Location: UK

Not an obtuse question at all Michael - not many people use these for regular photography

SW stands for the maker ( Skywatcher ) its an astro scope. ST is the model name, 120 is the size of the front elements ( 120mm ) 600 is the focal length

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas

Ah, okay, well, as an ex-active astronomer (not much to see around where I live now), I find myself asking more questions:

What is the optical construction? Doublet? Triplet? APO?

I checked out eBay and they have some Celestron Sky Watcher listings, but nothing as large as a 120mm. Is this an older Celestron?

Fretless Pete · Joined: 12 Oct 2009 Posts: 171 Location: UK

Factory collimated air spaced doublet with crayford 2" rack focuser.
Non APO sad to say. You can double the price at least for LD/ED glass,
so thats why mine was cheap. You can buy this model without too
much problem. I got mine in Germany. SW are mostly Europe, but you are more likely to find the sister of this ( Orion ) in the US

It has a CA problem because its non APO. Not in every shot,
but those with high contrast. But i can deal with most of the
CA in Adobe CS4

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas

Ah, yes. Orion I've heard of. Used to be on their mailing list. Dunno about now, but back then they made about a bazillion different refractor models. Think I'll go check out their website.

I've always thought it was a great idea to use telescopes as long lenses. I had a Celestron 4" (102mm) APO years ago that I used to use for double duty, and it was great, but wherever it went, pretty much so did its equatorial mount as well. The ED/APO scopes cost a fraction of what their lens counterparts go for, so there's that value to be had.

So did you just buy an OTA or the mount too? Orion has the 120 ST for $550 with mount and tripod. $320 for just the OTA. It doesn't have those cool looking aluminum knobs on the focuser, though -- just plastic.

$320 for a 600mm f/5 strikes me as a cracking good deal. Add another $35 for a set of rings, and then machine a plate to bolt them to so it can be tripod mounted and, bang, you've got a great land scope. Of course, like with a mirror you only have the one f-stop, but hey . . . can't have everything.

Fretless Pete · Joined: 12 Oct 2009 Posts: 171 Location: UK

Yeah they do make a gazillion models, and it seems you found the equivalant. Not exactly identical, but almost. The price seems right..i paid GBP £240 for mine and like you say, if you can live with its idiosyncracies, there's not much to touch it for the price. Even the weight is an advantage @ 8.5Lbs. I dont know of a DSLR of 600mm FL and wide aperture that weighs so little.

I bought just the OTA, but that came with the barrel rings and red dot finder. I sold the finder for about £20.

The mount bar underneath that attaches to the barrel rings ( the dovetail bar ) i had to buy seperatley for about £12/13 - no need to machine anything up. The bar has mount holes for tripod QR plates.

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas

Good to know. I saw a listing for dovetail bars, but I didn't know what they were. I'm pretty sure, however, that the Orion does not come with the rings. And it could be that more recent models have lost the cool aluminum knobs because I did see that more expensive refractor models still had them. Sad

Moves to keep the cost down, it looks like, what with the worthlessness of the USD and all.

Fretless Pete · Joined: 12 Oct 2009 Posts: 171 Location: UK

Yes cost cutting seems to be everywhere right now. You wouldnt want to be in Greece right now though Shocked

Orion are not the only US scope seller though, so if you are really interested in getting the reach for little coin, maybe research further. Astro photography is not my bag at all, and IMO, the only other use a scope has is for birds, so its the only reason i bought one

metallaro1980 · Posted: Sat Aug 06, 2011 6:52 pm Post subject:

Carl Zeiss Planar T* 1.4/50

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

metallaro1980, such a beauty! Where is it ?

Hari · Expire: 2015-05-27

metallaro1980 · Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2011 5:42 am Post subject:

Nikon75-150E · Joined: 14 Aug 2011 Posts: 148 Location: Houston TX

I got a good one of this bird at the park. It's cropped as the creature would not let me get close as I wanted. Nikon D300, 75-150 Series E

ManualFocus-G · Expire: 2014-11-24

Bill, that's a great shot!

mo · Expire: 2016-07-30

Just to make it clear, this is not my image but a quoted image and link from a new member

Here`s one of my favourites. Shot with Helios 44-2 and Macro extension. Camera Lumix G1.

Flickr Link[/b]

metallaro1980 · Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2011 10:33 am Post subject:

rbreznik · Joined: 26 Jan 2011 Posts: 55 Location: Slovenia, Maribor

This one is taken with sigma APO 400mm f5.6.

adent · Joined: 06 Oct 2011 Posts: 304 Location: United States

Glow · Joined: 06 Feb 2012 Posts: 10 Location: Hamburg, Germany

woodrim · Joined: 14 Jan 2010 Posts: 4060 Location: Charleston

Gothic_Snake · Joined: 19 Mar 2012 Posts: 66 Location: Almaty, Kazakstan

I like this

my wife)

Carl Zeiss Sonar 135 3,5

Gothic_Snake · Joined: 19 Mar 2012 Posts: 66 Location: Almaty, Kazakstan

Taken at the last weekend. Rikoh Rikenon 55 1.4 (m42)

kuentkas · Joined: 13 Jun 2012 Posts: 1

Share my art photos

by [URL=" Vincent[/URL] on Flickr

DigiChromeEd · Joined: 29 Dec 2009 Posts: 3462 Location: Northern Ireland

declan · Joined: 17 Dec 2009 Posts: 162 Location: Indonesia

EP-3 (Digital Converter ON) + Tamron SP 90/2.5

andymw · Joined: 09 Jul 2012 Posts: 19

Only had the lens a few days, but here's my best so far. Carl Zeiss Jena 135mm F3.5 on NEX-5N with EVF. Wide open at 1/320s at the British Grand Prix.