Why David Attenborough's people buy the expensive lenses

[fivemack]

(click and it gets bigger, but sadly in two cases no sharper; this is with the smallest and cheapest readily available large expensive lens, a second-hand Sigma 70-200/2.8 with 2x teleconverter. Picture 2 isn't too fuzzy, though f/11 isn't really enough for dimly-lit lions far away)

Also, in honour of Galileo:

Comments

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

I have a telescope, of the sort that is sold in high-street stores; the optics are made out of half-reasonable optical-grade cheese but rather less attention is paid to the mounting. The camera mount is on order.

Motorised tracking isn't a problem for the Moon and Jupiter, they're hundredth-of-a-second exposures anyway.

I borrowed a nice telescope from major_clanger, and used it twice in six months, so am not going to buy a nice telescope - maybe if I had a car which I could park securely with the telescope mostly set up in the boot, but I can't drive. There are a few places where you can go on holiday which have telescopes set up for you to use, and I'm tempted by that from time to time, though the one I know is in a particularly inaccessible corner of Portugal.