I did the same thing with my ist-DL, and got the same crappy stuff. Talk about being p1ssed off! But I converted them to jpeg's using Pentax's photo lab, and to my surprise got sopmething reasonably acceptable. I had a Sigma 100-300 f/4.5-6.7 on the front, too - not renowned for its sharpness.
Here's a before: http://picasaweb.google.com/petergly/OnePhoto/photo#5103871449239871586 And here's the same shot after I converted with Pentax's photo lab: http://picasaweb.google.com/petergly/OnePhoto/photo#5103871569498955890 I lost some shadow detail, but I'm happy with that compared to the original. Here's what I ended up with: http://picasaweb.google.com/petergly/2007LunarEclipse Given that this was my first ever attempt at this sort of photography, the cheap lens I had on the front, and the crappy Sydney air, I'm quite happy with these. Ciao, Peter in western Sydney Tom C wrote: > I hate my *ist D. I stayed up until 5:15 AM taking eclipse photos. The > first several within 20 minutes of when the eclipse started look OK, though > that was not the fabulous part of the evening(morning). However, the camera > quickly became noisy (electronic noise), even at short exposures ISO 400 and > 1/500 sec. All with Tokina 500 f/8 mirror lens. > > Of course it was at its absolute worst during totality. One shot for some > reason was less noisy than the others, though still ruined by noise (next to > the last as presented). > > http://photo.net/photodb/presentation.tcl?presentation_id=355756 > > Most shots looked good on the LCD, even when magnified to check focus, with > orange hues and turquoise tones at the edge of earths shadow. All lost to > noise. > > Some taken during totality didn't make muster because 8 - 10 sec exposures > were too long and exhibited too much tracking across the frame. > > I'm not sure if I have a hardware problem with the camera... may be time to > throw it in the trash. I've taken other aurora shots with the same body > that were virtually noise free at exposures of 15 - 20 seconds. The newer > *ist DS with less than 1000 shots on it was even worse, however, at ISO 800 > and 2 secs. Images (not shown here) were absolutely obliterated. Looked > like a Photoshop effect. > > Still amazing to watch. > > Tom C. > > > > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
