Camera Labs

(EDIT - SPLIT AND MOVED FROM PANASONIC FORUM - GL)

Well, since I've essentially hijacked this thread, this is the best Jupiter (+3 moons) that I have been able to manage thus far with the TZ5. Digital zoom is on, ISO 200, Exposure time 1 sec. Any ideas on better settings?

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Novice DMC-TZ5 owner

any chance of trying with 1/10 sec shutter speed using Shutter Priority Mode?

The image of jupiter looks too bright or over exposed, surely you would be able to capture some cloud detail on Jupiter with a faster shutter speed?

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Mark C.

Weather permitting, I will try again tonight, and post results. A slower shutter was yielding me very dim pictures last night, but I will try 1/10 and see how it goes.

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Novice DMC-TZ5 owner

You can also further reduce the exposure and improve the quality by fixing the sensitivity to 100 ISO...

I have been trying all combinations of settings, though, most have been at 100 or 200 ISO. This one happens to be at ISO 200, with an exposure time of 1/15 sec (closest I could get to the suggested 1/10). As you can see, I now have a purple dot in the center of Jupiter (was on most of last night's efforts). It seemed clear when I took them, but you never know. I also have that white fuzz around the outside edges, which really seems to affect my moon shots. I'm not giving up yet, but I think I'm quickly running out of settings to try. Not having much in the way of manual control on the TZ5 might cramp my style more than I thought it would. Thanks for the suggestions. I think the fast speed lost me Jupiter's moons; it may take a combo of shots, eventually.

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Novice DMC-TZ5 owner

And the aforementioned "fuzzy moon", which I hope is just my settings, and not the camera itself.

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Novice DMC-TZ5 owner

nice photo. The purple haze may be (I think it is called) "light refraction".
please correct me if I'm wrong.
I have seen the same thing in some if my photos that have been croped more then %100. . . but just on the edges of the subject.
I'm not sure why it would be in the center of your's???

I do have a question. Your camera is 10x optic zoom right?
does it move into digi zoom after 10x? This could explane the fuzz/haze in your shots

also, I don't know, but what would 10x optic zoom be in mm?
I think I may give this a go with my 300mm.

Nick

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Canon Rebel XTI, Tamron 70-300mm w/180-300 macro AF, Canon 18-55mm,Canon 50mm F1.8, Sandisk ExtremeIII 2gig.
Nikon N2020.My Flickr

The TZ5 has a normal optical zoom until 10X (280mm), but it also has an "extended optical zoom", which, as I understand it, uses the center area of the CCD collector and crops the edges, which goes to 16.9X. However, these photos were taken with the digital zoom, which is around 60X, which I might have said could account for the distortion, but I even see it under lower optical zoom levels. I hope you have better luck than I did.

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Novice DMC-TZ5 owner

Strange as it may sound, when taking planet/moon pics, I use the lens hood to cut out any ambient haze and set the camera to burst mode just in case the light collected is distorted and can get more shots in one aim.

Extra Zoom is a very clever adaptation, especially as you do not need all those pixels to cover black space.

It goes without saying but using a tripod and shutter trigger timer is essential.

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Mark C.

Hi astroman,

It ain't easy, is it, but half the fun is in the chase. I see from the EXIF data that your Jupiter shot used an exposure of 1/8th of a second and f/4.9 while your Moon shot used 1/50th of a second and f/4.9. The coloured fringing around Jupiter may be down to chromatic aberration from the lens and it may be down to slight mis-focussing. Quite possibly even a combination of the two. And then there is always the issue of atmospheric seeing.

For the Moon shot my guess, and it is only a guess, is that poor focus may be the main issue though ability of the lens to resolve the finest detail may also be relevant.

There is one final factor to take into account though you don't have any control over it. The sensor in your camera is, if I've got my sums right, under 5mm high which means that each pixel is very roughly about 1.7µm on a side. That means that your lens needs to be set to at least f/4 and preferably f/2.8 to avoid image softening due to diffraction - this would be true even if the lens is optically perfect. Using f/4.9, which is your widest aperture at the "tele" end of your zoom range, means that the Airy Disk is going to be roughly four pixels across, thus limiting what is achievable even with a sharpening step in post-processing. Not what you wanted to hear, I know, but until you get your images down to a point where resolution is two or three pixels across after sharpening there is still hope.

Bob.

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

I got similar blurred results when experimenting with other planets but in Manual Mode with as high as f/stop number as possible - f8. As you are focussing on 1 object, you do not need that much depth of field.

I found that you get better results if you set your aperture as wide as possible such as f2.8 and set manual focus to infinity. A shutter speed of 1 to 2 seconds seems adequate.

Good luck...

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Mark C.

Sorry for the delay in response; I had a dead router to deal with. Bob's answer made me glad that my eyeball is so easy to use; I keep saying this, but I really need to take the time to learn this camera better (beyond just reading the manual). I really wish that there were more books out there that were dedicated to specific models other than Canon and Nikon. More specifically, I need to start thinking in terms of f/stop, so I can more intuitively understand the people trying to help me. I did follow you, and I really hope that it was just a "poor seeing" night, as the auto-focus problem is nothing I know how to correct for.

@ ceemsc Unfortunately, I don't have manual focus, so I am rather at the camera's mercy. And, until I mount my camera on a (properly aligned) equatorial mount, I notice quite a bit of blurring with a 1 sec exposure of Jupiter.

My compact digital camera telescope/binocular mount arrives tomorrow, so, hopefully, I will have better results to post over the next week. I have a solar filter, so have been experimenting with shots of the sun (some of those could make there way here as well). Anyway, as always, thanks again to the both of you for the suggestions/explanations, they are appreciated.

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Novice DMC-TZ5 owner