about pushing the limits of the 70-300

[Falk]

ISS and Space Shuttle Discovery on her last mission (STS-133) - over Northern Germany, Feb. 26th 2011, 18:40 (GMT)



Since Nov. 5th 2010 was I waiting for this thing finaly to lift off. Specially because I participated in the NASA Face in Space promo action and have shot my mother into space with her

I use the website www.heavens-above.com

[crimbo]

Re: about pushing the limits of the 70-300

Nice one
so exposure , ISO,...etc...I wanna have a go!

[Guest]

Re: about pushing the limits of the 70-300 (Shuttle)

I have to be honest here Falk - except for your narrative this image could be taken as a glint of chrome in a car park on a pitch black night.

Nice try though, mate!

[Falk]

Re: about pushing the limits of the 70-300

Haha Mark, you should know that there is no place near by where it would be pitch black - because of all the light pollution we have

Now, I've gone through the pain of arranging a series of shots showing the complete flypast of ISS and Discovery to back me up:


Considering the distance I was amazed that I got anything to see at all - other then a dot of bright light that is! My E-30's time was apparently only very few seconds off, as the calculated time (local) for the ISS to enter Earth shadow was given as 19:41:00.
One problem though, I ran out of buffer size about the culmination point and had to wait a few precious seconds for the camera to write the files onto the CF card. Seems as I need a faster one ...

Cheers,
Falk

[Ian]

Re: about pushing the limits of the 70-300

Remarkable!

Ian

[Guest]

Re: about pushing the limits of the 70-300

OK Falk, I will concede that you have certainly pushed the lens to it limits.
Scientifically you can chalk it up as a considerable achievement.
Aesthetically ... ... well, a Martian would love it I guess!

[Ellie]

Re: about pushing the limits of the 70-300

You're so lucky to have managed to take these pictures, a bit of cloud cover and you'd have lost the chance.

[Falk]

Re: about pushing the limits of the 70-300

Mark, yes - the scientific significance is what it is all about
I compare this to nature photography (as I see it): with some elusive critter you rather can/should be lucky with a blurred pic - then no pic at all.

Ellie, your are so right! In fact, I had tried the same feat the day before. When I looked outside a little before time, to see if the sky was clear, it was. But, only fifteen minutes later, with the ISS overhead, there was already and quite unfortunately a thin layer of clouds. I took some photos anyways - but I better spare you those. The Discovery was not near the ISS at that time, so the test was no major loss.