I am looking for a L series RF Lens For Astrophotography and Landscape for my R5 Mark ii. I shoot a lot of landscape and am very interested in Astro, I would eventually like to get into some deep space stuff but that is not going to happen just yet. I am hoping someone could suggest an L-series rf lens that would be good for both? I had been looking at the 16mm RF lens but it is not a L series and I have gotten spoiled with the quality of images from my EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM Lens so I think I would like to stick with the L series, if I can afford them.
The other kinds distant thought is a RF 100mm f/2.8 L Macro IS USM Lens. I have a interest in Macro but can't kneel, squat or bend due to injuries and most of what interests me is on or near the ground so I am not sure, I would have to have a tree or a chair to use to get off the ground if I sat. I like the idea of photographing eyes, raindrops/ice droplets as they cling to a tree and other outdoor kinda stuff.
I am attaching some of my landscape shots to give you and idea of what I like to shoot, I almost always shoot from a tripod and from the sitting position as standing is quite painful for me. I am having problems uploading the ones I want, they all need to be resized and I am not good at getting them to the right size, stupid numbers again.
Many MW shooters don't use trackers, but then your upper limit is a single exposure of 30s or so without leaving visible trails. With a tracker, you get no trails, and to my eyes the result is a lot sharper, especially if you leave the foreground stars in at full brightness as I did in this version. But the real benefit of a tracker for MW shots comes with multiple exposures and panoramas (with the Polaris), which, as an astro noob, I'm not into yet. I'm still on the steep part of the learning curve. I have played with a bit of deep space, but these have been single exposures too. A couple I shot from AZ last winter. Again, very much a noob, so I'm not subtracting "darks" (exposure with no light) to remove hot pixels, but these were 30s tracked with an RF800/11 on an R7, so the sharpness is diffraction limited, but the tracking is pretty good. Orion nebula & M32; it takes very long &/or multi exposures to see the spiral details in the latter.
I agree fully when you are zeroing in on a smaller section of the sky, they are priceless. Same with a panorama. For general wide shots, I seem to do fine with no trails at 25 seconds. I am simply wondering if there is an advantage for basic shots like this one... (Obviously this was a quick edit, and I didn't correct the lens distortion).
Nice image. If you are using a very wide lens, say <15mm on a FF, then the trailing problem is obviously reduced,and that is how many MW shots are taken. I'm using single shot currently but hope to get round to stacking soon so I'm using single-shot right now to see what works with the Polaris. BTW, one correction, the RF16 must produce barrel distortion as I actually applied pincushion correction in PS. This is what the combined sky and geometrically-corrected foreground looked like before cropping, so you can see how much I had to pull those corners to correct the verticals there. So you are better shooting MW using a short but linear lens if you are OK with its weight & price; MF lenses are often preferred for astro BTW. Alternatively shoot it as a panorama, the images you see of the MW as an arc obviously have to be captured that way. BTW, there are a couple of groups on FB where you can receive a lot of advice on gear for astro; Astro for Beginners is a good one. But like all FB groups , you need to take some of what you read there with more than just a grain of salt!
I've typically bought MF lenses for astro photos over the years. I've had many of the Rokinon lenses, but this year stumbled upon the Venus Optics Laowa RF 15mm F/2 FE Zero-D, and it has proven to me quite nicer than the Rokinon 14mm F/2.8 that I used in the photo above. Less distortion, less vignetting, and easier to correct than the Rokinon series of wide lenses.
I don't think the FB astronomy for beginners would be the group for me. I've been heavily into photography since the early 1980's including a lot of digital and film night skies, and infrared. I've simply never used a tracker, hence my questions above. I agree 100% on taking the FB groups with a grain of salt. I'm in three different Canon groups and help where I can, but some of the advice is so off the wall that it's scary (but it's good for a laugh). I often tell people to come over here to read what is in the Canon forums if they want good advice.
I have gone the panorama route many times for the MW arch. I need to try it now with the Venus Optics laowa 15mm. But for a pano, the nice thing is that you can use any lens if you are willing to stitch together enough images. I was out shooting film a handful of years ago, and decided to stay and observe the night skies. I did not have any of my digital gear with me other than a Canon 6D and a 70-200mm lens. In my film gear bag I had an adaptor to use some Pentax film lenses on my various digital cameras. So this image was taken with a Pentax 28mm F/2.8 film lens. It is two rows of 7 images (so 14 total), stitched together in PS. Granted, from what I hear a tracker would have helped make this a nicer image - same with some of my nice digital lenses which were at home, but sometimes you work with what you have.
