tarashnat

<p>I have multiple bodies. It has come in handy when shooting star trails, as individual exposures run into hours, it added the ability to increase the number of pictures I could shoot on the rare moonless nights with clear weather. My first body was a 500C/M. I then got a 503CW for flash metering and a 2000FCW for multiple exposures to give my kit some added flexibility for specific projects.</p>

<p>I use a card reader for my CF and SD cards.</p>

<p>I did have one case where a CF card refused to be read by the card reader, but seemed OK in camera and I was able to download the images to my computer via USB cable to the camera (Canon 5D).</p>

<p>You could have ended up discharging the internal battery that keeps the clock (amongst other things) working. You may be able to get this back enough to operate the camera by putting in a fully charged battery and letting the camera sit for a bit (try overnight or a couple of days). I think I had this happen to one of my 5Ds when I had it sit too long with a discharged battery in the body.</p>

<p>Aren't you limited on the number of images you can write to a folder? Once you get to the limit (I think it is 999 on my 5D), you need to create another folder. Maybe this is what happened.</p>

<p>If you just have the one battery, it could be reaching the end of its useful life. I bought a second battery (third party) for my used 5D and after a few months it would appear to charge quickly, but discharge just as quickly. after two of these "cycles" I noticed that there was some corrosion on the battery's contacts. After removing this, the battery functioned reasonably. So you may also want to check the contacts.<br>

I would not downgrade below 1.1.1 with the 5D, as the earlier firmware can not format CF cards larger than 8 GB.</p>

<p>A good primer:</p>

<p>http://www.astropix.com/HTML/I_ASTROP/TRIPOD/TRIPOD2.HTM</p>

<p>Have you checked that the contacts are clean? My third party 5D battery was showing up as low charge in the camera, but charged after a few minutes in the charger. It still showed up as low charge in the camera. I noticed some discoloration on the + terminal of the battery, and after cleaning the terminal, the battery charged normally.</p>

<p>It may be fun to play with a 500 mm f/8 or even f/6.3 lens, but I would not bank on it for a "must have" shot.</p>

<p>Here are a few shots I took with an old Vivitar 500 mm f/8 mirror lens on my 5D that I originally bought for astrophotography with my Minolta 35 mm film cameras years ago but abandoned it in favor of 500 mm f/5.6 Pro Optic spotting scope for that focal length.</p>

<p>http://www.flickr.com/photos/66908321@N00/tags/vivitar500mmf8/</p>

<p>Since I already had it, I've taken it out to have some fun with it. I don't think that it is junk, but it is definitely not easy to shoot with as accurate focus is an issue and the single aperture means any exposure changes require use of neutral density filters which add to the focus issues. These images I shot hand held, so the lens is light enough to shoot hand held, though that will add to the softness as this focal length is beyond what most can hold steady enough for a reasonably sharp image. If you shoot enough, you may get a lucky shot or two, but most will be blurry. But this kind of lens is, in my opinion, too slow, both aperture and operation, for most nature photography. It can be used for such, but would be an exercise in frustration.</p>

<p>If one were to get a lens like this with a screw mount, for the EOS T-adapter to use with it I would consider one of the ones with the chip for focus confirmation. But those do entail some risk to the camera.</p>

<p>Taras</p>

<p>You may want to experiment with taking flat field images with your SWC at various apertures to determine if the colour cast is a product of the lens/back combination or due to the nature of the subject. If you notice colour patches in the flat fields, you can use those to process them out of your images. For background see image processing of astronomical images for a detailed explanation of flat field images.</p>

<p>µm</p>

<p>Here is an "all-sky" Milky Way image I took with my F-Distagon.<br>

<img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4007/4231300331_232c8311fc.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="500" /></p>

<p>There are two additional things one would use a 2000FCW for. One would be for multiple exposures. It is easier to take multiple/double exposure photographs using the 2000FCW where the camera needs to remain still. The second would be relatively repeatable exposures up to a minute (with the shutter speed multiplier). These are very specialized uses that very few photographers would require.</p>

<p>This looks a lot like lens flare from internal reflections from not using a hood, or a very bright light reflecting off the internal surface of a hood. I've actually had that happen to me once. Newer bodies and lenses had made various improvements to try to minimize this effect (palpas coating for bodies and new internal design and new anti-reflection materials reducing stray light in the lenses for example). The darker strip off to one side is the shadow of something inside your camera that is blocking some of the scattered light.</p>

<p>Of all the Hasselblad Carl Zeiss lenses, the 500 mm F/8 Tessar C seems to have the worst reputation. Though some of this may be justified, I feel that a substantial portion of the criticism comes from users without the patience to overcome this lens's limitations with more care to one's shooting technique. I can not really judge the relative amounts, as I have not used the 500 mm in its C version. I own and have used the Apotessar CF version of the lens and have used it for lunar and guided astrophotography and for skylines. This lens belongs on a tripod. The original C lens had a shoulder stock accessory to aid in steadying the lens when used handheld. I would guess that it wasn't very successful, but whether it was for lack of sales, or lack of appreciable effect on the photographic results, I have no idea.<br>

All that said, I like my Apotessar a lot and am pleased with the results I get when I pay attention to my technique. I would hazard to guess that very few Hasselblad owners have seen, much less used, the 500 mm lens. Now, while it is not an easy lens to use for wildlife photography, when used properly under the right conditions, I would suspect that the results would be surprisingly good. Birds in nests or on perches or grazing animals would be better targets than birds in flight or running animals, especially when well lit by the sun.<br>

Another issue with this lens, is that the vignetting in the viewfinder in the upper part of the image is very pronounced on the older bodies without the Gliding Mirror System. I rarely, if ever use the 500 mm on my 500C/M. If I plan to use it, it is with my 503CW or 200FCW bodies as a goo sixth of the image is not visible in the viewfinder (it will illuminate the whole area of the film, though).<br>

Feel free to search the forum for prior discussions of this lens.<br>

Taras</p>

<p>Using a wide enough lens and a short enough gap between exposures and the wider your aperture is open minimizes the size of the gap and the gaps may actually just become just "notches" in the trails or not noticeable.</p>

<p>Slightly defocusing the image may also blur out the gaps. I haven't tried this yet.</p>

<p>A film exposure of 7 hours duration.</p>

<p>On my site: http://homepage.mac.com/tarashnat/astrophoto/MF-00319-10.html</p><div></div>

<p>Due to the response curves of film and digital sensors being different, you will not be able to replicate extremely long (or short) exposures of one format with the other. Each will have its unique look.<br>

<br /> Actually, another advantage of manual film cameras is that some do not require a battery to take the multi-hour exposure.</p>

<p>Attached photo is a stack of digital exposures.</p><div></div>

<p>An important thing to consider is backup. Whether you have a Mac or a PC, the hard drive can fail at any time. It would be wise to have a strategy in place to back up any photos/movies you shoot. This is a bit easier than duplicating film, but more important at a minimum. Even better would be a backup of your entire system (OS, applications, and data).</p>

<p>Or, one that has an AC power option, if you have AC mains available. Or an external battery pack option.</p>

<p>The most important setting in the scan process is to insure that the scanner exposure gives the best histogram possible. This will make all subsequent editing easier. If all your film is properly exposed, then you won't have to alter this much, if at all, unless you have special cases like night photography, etc.</p>

<p>I shoot a lot of night shots and on the lenses that have a distance scale, I use a <strong>keychain red LED flashlight</strong> to check the distance scale on the lens. The reason the lenses focus past infinity is that due to thermal expansion or contraction, infinity focus may not necessarily be where it is marked on the lens. For normal temperature ranges this should not be an issue, but if you are shooting in really hot or cold climates, this may be off enough to matter when shooting wide open. The 50 mm f/1.8 is the most difficult lens with which to get the focus right as it doesn't have the distance scale.</p>

<p>Most Hasselblad 50x series camera bodies sold with a lens were sold with the Carl Zeiss 80 mm f/2.8 <strong>Planar</strong> lens in one of its many generations/versions (C, CF, CFe, CB). If trends for the C lenses continued into the later generations, then over 50% of Hasselblad owners only had this one lens. A big proportion of the rest were either the Carl Zeiss 150 mm f/4 Sonnar or the Carl Zeiss 50 mm f/3.5 Distagon. All the other lenses accounted for a much smaller population.<br>

The 80 mm lens for Hasselblad is a Planar. The pre-1957 Hasselblad focal plane cameras had 80 mm Kodak Ektar and Carl Zeiss Tessars available, but they are not compatible with the 500 series bodies. I am not aware of any 80 mm Sonnar lenses for the Hasselblad.</p>

<p>If you are looking for low distortion wide angle for the Hasselblad, do consider the 38mm Biogon lens of the SWC range of cameras (SWC, SWC/M, 903, or 905). </p>

<p><em>I can see advantage in doing the opposite, since Hasselblad lenses are so expensive if you compare to Nikon lenses.</em></p>

<p>No advantage as 35 mm Nikon lenses can't cover the medium format film size.</p>

<p>What you may want to consider is a soft weight like a beanbag placed above the tripod connection point on the lens to dampen vibrations.<br>

If the target is static, then shutter pre-fire (mirror lock-up) is advised. And you may want to use a cable release as well. Anything that minimizes camera shake.</p>