Re: Photographing the Comet

[Ted Grant <75501.3002@CompuServe.COM>]

Dick Hemingway wrote:

<<How big a flash do you need to illuminate the comet???>>>>>>

Hi Dick,
I sure can't be given credit for the "flash line" you have tagged me with!:)
However I have to tell you the night I shot mine there were folks with happy
snap family cameras who were shooting and the flash would go off! :)

I just smiled. 

I was on top of one of the mini mountains we have here in Victoria to shoot mine
and I assumed when one would shoot something like this, you'd use the longest
lens possible, otherwise what the heck do you see with a 50mm or 90mm lens. I
was shooting with an 800mm Leitz lens.

Mine turned out not bad and when we screened it it looked like a comet, even if
I was 8000mm short for a really good size. There was the comet with a trail of
the tail, but it wasn't the big spectacular scene I had imagined.

Using the R8 I just tripped the shutter and the camera set the exposure
correctly and I couldn't believe it turned out as well as it did. I also shot
the moon eclipse the same evening and the same way, but I spot metered with the
800mm right on the moon and the frames are right on the mark for exposure with
detail in the moon surface.

I used Kodak E100SW pushed 2 stops to 400 and they are great.

I thought when a friend of mine was getting all excited about the comet coming
real close and then found out it was a zillion miles away, I suggested to her to
let me know when it goes by at tree top level, then it would be spectacular. :)
She on the other hand went into a great disertation of the dangers and missed my
tongue in cheek comment.  But hey it would be something else smoking right along
at tree top level, just think of the great images with a 15mm lens, as I was
told it is 12 times bigger than earth.

And then maybe the flash would work! :)

ted