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Old 05-07-2018, 08:56 AM   #4
Rich Z
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragonling View Post
Interesting to compare these. You might get better results with a remote shutter for sure, but I'm really just blown away by that P900.

Here is a shot from the Sony a6500 with a Sigma 150-600mm taken from a tripod with a remote: https://flic.kr/p/YYjD6C I think we lost a bit of contrast overall (though I'm not looking on a good monitor right now), but I'm really pleased with the detail on the left edge. I'd bet with a remote you could get similar results if not better ones.
Yeah, that looks very sharp. Sigma does make some nice lenses, but it seems that you have to be selective with any brand, and sometimes individual lenses will be better or worse than the average. I've got a 24-120 Nikkor lens that just is not as sharp as I would like, so even top of the line brand names can have some poor samples in the batch. But I think I've become pickier of this sharpness thing than I used to be.

I may have gotten better shots had I boosted the ISO setting too, to increase the shutter speed. But this was just a quick trial run to compare the lenses I was trying out. Nikon has a 200-500 lens that people are raving about that is relatively inexpensive compared to their prime long lenses. Just no way in hell I'm going to be paying $10,000+ for a lens! Plus those things are a whole lot heavier than I want to be toting around on a camera anyway. Trying to hand hold some of the larger lenses I already have are getting to be a challenge since my hands aren't as steady as they used to be.

One of these days I need to figure out how to align that astro tripod head I have so it will actually track the moon. But I'm guessing it will need to be dead on to get the really sharp pictures that I want. Problem is, that the alignment procedure requires identifying stars, which I don't have a clue about. So it has always seemed like a lot of work for something that I would take down after trying a few photos from the rig. I guess the alignment gets easier with experience, though.