I silly-rigged a £40k cinema camera to an 120ED last night and took 2500 frames of the moon - not sure what to do now - haha.

[Daniel Karl]

I went a bit silly yesterday and decided to stick a 5kg cinema camera together with an 120ED refractor onto a slab of plywood on a video tripod and film the moon.

I didn't expect to get much out of it, because the whole thing isn't really stiff enough to keep the scope aligned with the sensor and in order to focus I had to move the entire optical tube within the rings, but I did it anyway.
The camera was set to 60fps at 1/3000s shutter speed in 3.2k ProRes 4444. The 120ED had a 0.85 field flattener, so effectively 765mm focal length.

 

It would be a complete miracle if the focus were anywhere near perfect, because on top of the fact that I had to move the whole OTA, I didn't use a motor and that video tripod wasn't exactly sturdy. Similarly it'd be a very unlikely coincidence if the sensor ended up parallel to the image plane given how much flex there was in the make shift 'construction'.

I also have never used image stacking for lunar photos, so I basically just randomly pressed a few buttons.



It was fun, but I'm not quite sure if it's worth trying to build a more rugged platform to use the camera again and properly, or if a DSLR would do just as well - haha.

Also has anyone maybe advice or knows a good guide for processing these kind of images (I used RegiStax)?

Cheers,

Dan

[Daniel Karl]

Okay - went out yesterday and did the same thing with the 7D - just using raw stills - I don't think I'll bother with the cinema camera any more - haha.

[Swoop1]

A couple of very nice pictures there Daniel. I am particularly impressed with the result of the 'Bloody Stupid Johnson" (Thanks Pterry) set up with the video camera.

[Stuart1971]

That camera cost £40k....😮😮😮😮 or so the title says....?? 😮

[Nicola Hannah Butterfield]

14 hours ago, Stuart1971 said:

That camera cost £40k....😮😮😮😮 or so the title says....?? 😮

Seen the price of the Hasselblad H6D-400c MS.

@Daniel Karlsort of stuff I do, but not with such expensive kit.

[Daniel Karl]

18 hours ago, Swoop1 said:

A couple of very nice pictures there Daniel. I am particularly impressed with the result of the 'Bloody Stupid Johnson" (Thanks Pterry) set up with the video camera.

I was a bit surprised myself actually given the sheer haphazardness of the construction.

But at the end of the day I don’t think it was really worth the effort, considering how easy it was to use the 7D instead

18 hours ago, Stuart1971 said:

That camera cost £40k....😮😮😮😮 or so the title says....?? 😮

Yeah. The toys of my trade tend to be priced slightly outside of this reality. A set of industry standard cine prime lenses can easily cost over a quarter million pounds and the Amira is on the low end of the Arri spectrum. It is the sensor and colour science that is used for 90% of all digital cinema productions  (like Blade Runner 2049 for example).

3 hours ago, Nicola Hannah Butterfield said:

Seen the price of the Hasselblad H6D-400c MS.

@Daniel Karlsort of stuff I do, but not with such expensive kit.

The medium format digi backs might be quite nice for moon photography. If you have a scope that can deliver a clean flat image of that size. I used to experiment with 6x6 film for astrophotography 20 years ago, but ultimately is wasn’t worth the hassle. Haha.

I do wonder how a 200mm Arri Signature Prime would perform for wide field Deep Sky photography though. Unfortunately I don’t have £27k spare to try it.😌

[DaveS]

Well, if you *really* want 6x6 medium format FLI will do you one.

[PeterW]

Bung the video into Autostakkert, there is a post by the creator around at the moment. Basically use the default setting a and you’ll get a great result. The issue with using DSLR is you don’t get the high number of frames to stack and thus beat the series to get the finest details. 
there is another costly camera I wish someone would gift me…. Canon ME20F https://m.dpreview.com/news/6951279684/recording-video-of-the-perseid-meteor-shower-with-the-canon-me20f-sh

Peter

[Nicola Hannah Butterfield]

@Daniel Karl This is the other end of the cost scale taken at the same time'ish as your first image, one of the cheapest planetary cameras ASI 120 MC on an 8" Skywatcher, ok not the cheapest scope, but far from being expensive.

I processed about 45 1,000 frame vids, the angle of view with this set up is small, and it only really needs about 15 overlapping frames, stacked in Autostakkert and PP work in P.S.

I have done a little bit of this over the last year, still learning.

[Alien 13]

Nice result, I do find it amusing when people say astro photography is expensive, like you mentioned video is a league above, same with audio kit..

Alan

[Daniel Karl]

2 hours ago, DaveS said:

Well, if you *really* want 6x6 medium format FLI will do you one.

Haha - I remember the Baader site from back in the days. It's on my black list  To keep me sane. Also it'd be a serious sin to use any of this stuff in London.

 

1 hour ago, PeterW said:

Bung the video into Autostakkert, there is a post by the creator around at the moment. Basically use the default setting a and you’ll get a great result. The issue with using DSLR is you don’t get the high number of frames to stack and thus beat the series to get the finest details. 
there is another costly camera I wish someone would gift me…. Canon ME20F https://m.dpreview.com/news/6951279684/recording-video-of-the-perseid-meteor-shower-with-the-canon-me20f-sh

Peter

I have actually used Autostakkert for both pics. Looking at the video, the seeing was pretty horrendous. I didn't use all the 2500 frames because Autostakkert didn't like the ProRes 4444, so I exported a Tiff sequence and got impatient after half an hour.

With the 7D I only stacked 250pictures. I guess the main limitation for this was my lack of experience with autostakkert and processing as well as the seeing (plus the focus and alignment issues)

 

14 minutes ago, Nicola Hannah Butterfield said:

@Daniel Karl This is the other end of the cost scale taken at the same time'ish as your first image, one of the cheapest planetary cameras ASI 120 MC on an 8" Skywatcher, ok not the cheapest scope, but far from being expensive.

I processed about 45 1,000 frame vids, the angle of view with this set up is small, and it only really needs about 15 overlapping frames, stacked in Autostakkert and PP work in P.S.

I have done a little bit of this over the last year, still learning.

That's way better than both my efforts haha - that just shows again how useless expensive toys in the wrong hands are  - and maybe that the right camera for Blade Runner might not be the best choice for astrophotography.
I am planning to get an ASI294MM at some point, but I'm still waiting for my mount to make it over from China, so until then I'm just going to attach anything I can find to the scope and see what happens - haha.
 

[PeterW]

Experience…. Jus get lots of frames taken with good focus and as short an exposure time as you can, don’t take inages for more than a few mins or things might have changed. Leave Autostakkert to do it’s stuff, it’ll even sharpen the result… you just have to sit and drink coffee while it does so, that’s what I do.

Peter

[Daniel Karl]

1 minute ago, Alien 13 said:

Nice result, I do find it amusing when people say astro photography is expensive, like you mentioned video is a league above, same with audio kit..

Alan

It's a weird thing that I hesitate to spend £200 on an eyepiece for the scope, but it seems completely reasonable that a pair of batteries with charger for my camera cost £1500.

Then again, nobody pays me to look at some fuzzy spots in the middle of the night but the people who do pay me wouldn't be happy if I ran out of batterie half way through a shoot day.


 

[Daniel Karl]

3 minutes ago, PeterW said:

Experience…. Jus get lots of frames taken with good focus and as short an exposure time as you can, don’t take inages for more than a few mins or things might have changed. Leave Autostakkert to do it’s stuff, it’ll even sharpen the result… you just have to sit and drink coffee while it does so, that’s what I do.

Peter

Perhaps I'll try again with all the frames - haha. But the seeing was pretty bad and I really doubt the focus was spot on. I guess that's the main weakness of the idea. Mechanically trying to rig this camera in a way it can move and stays optically aligned while weighing 5kg would require so much effort that it probably by far outweighs any advantage the camera could gain from 4444 colour space or the 200fps it can record at full ProRes 4444XQ quality. It can do 1/8000s exposure time but, the little 120ED doesn't get enough light even from the moon to achieve decent exposure with that. I think I was at ISO1280 and 1/3000. 
I think I can handle the coffee drinking part though

[PeterW]

With poor conditions I’d ask it to only use the best 10-15%, if you can run at 200fps, you can afford to Chuck plenty and still have a good number of good frames!

Peter

[Daniel Karl]

4 minutes ago, PeterW said:

With poor conditions I’d ask it to only use the best 10-15%, if you can run at 200fps, you can afford to Chuck plenty and still have a good number of good frames!

Peter

Cool - I'll try that - the sequence I used actually has 12.000 frames and I did convert 6000 to Tiff - and thinking about it 1/3000s should freeze most of the seeing. Guess the bit that will remain is focus and optical alignment. I'm running them through PIPP now and see if my laptop melts .. haha.

[iapa]

23 hours ago, Swoop1 said:

A couple of very nice pictures there Daniel. I am particularly impressed with the result of the 'Bloody Stupid Johnson" (Thanks Pterry) set up with the video camera.

Apologies to OP for being off topic but did you not mean TerryP

I loved his bathing room and the klackers 

[7170]

5 hours ago, Daniel Karl said:

Yeah. The toys of my trade tend to be priced slightly outside of this reality. A set of industry standard cine prime lenses can easily cost over a quarter million pounds and the Amira is on the low end of the Arri spectrum. It is the sensor and colour science that is used for 90% of all digital cinema productions  (like Blade Runner 2049 for example).

I'm way out of touch now, but I had an old 16SR that I bought used when people were dumping them years ago. Rock solid thing and I believe NASA even took the newer 16SR II into space on the shuttle twice. Never did the S16 conversion though. I'm very jealous when I see your camera, though i'm sure my computer is happy to not have to process/store the 3.2k PR4444 files, they must be massive!😀

[Swoop1]

32 minutes ago, iapa said:

Apologies to OP for being off topic but did you not mean TerryP

I loved his bathing room and the klackers 

No, I did mean Pterry. It is a habit I inherited from another place where there are many Terry P fans and, for some reason, when writing his name, we invoked Pyramids.

Daft, I know but it stuck.

[Daniel Karl]

22 minutes ago, 7170 said:

I'm way out of touch now, but I had an old 16SR that I bought used when people were dumping them years ago. Rock solid thing and I believe NASA even took the newer 16SR II into space on the shuttle twice. Never did the S16 conversion though. I'm very jealous when I see your camera, though i'm sure my computer is happy to not have to process/store the 3.2k PR4444 files, they must be massive!😀

The Arriflex were beautiful cameras! By far the nicest thing about shooting on film was that nobody else knew what you were doing  But the Amira is still in the Arri spirit - it's just dead reliable and does what it's supposed to do incredibly well. It's hard to believe that the sensor is 10 years old and for most high end cinematographers still sets the standard for image quality. 3.2k PR4444XQ comes in at about 11Gb per minute. Surprisingly I can edit that without trouble on my laptop (as long as the footage is on SSDs).

Storage is another story - I have a whole cabinet full of hard drives - despite the fact that I usually try to only shoot 2k.