Date: 15th March 1989
Time: 22:20 UT
Exposure: 5 sec @ f64
Equipment: 800mm FL f8 telephoto lens (Tokina) plus two 2x teleconverters
(lens aperture set to f16) This gave a focal length of 3200mm.
Film: Kodak Kodachrome 25
Site: Prestwich, Manchester, England
Notes:The lens was mounted on a tripod with a small drive. The exposure was made with the aid of a black piece of card held over the lens. When the shutter was pressed (cable release) the card was moved away to make the exposure then the card replaced over the lens to stop the exposure. The above was necessary as the opening of the shutter caused the lens to shake.
A very slow film was used to get as much fine detail recorded as possible. This jpeg image does not realy show just how sharp the image realy is. A lot is lost in scanning.
Don't belive what you here about teleconverters degrading an image, a good teleconverter will always produce a better image than trying to enlarge a photograph to same scale as one taken with a teleconverter. Of course using a lens of twice the focal length will generaly produce images better than a lens of half the focal length used with teleconverter.
Michael Oates.