Some new goodies!

I won a cheap 500mm prime lens on eBay. The only reason that I'd bought this was to try it out for Lunar photography, something I really enjoy but have so far struggled to grasp (mainly due to what feels like a whole month of cloud cover!). However, thanks to a friend of mine, I'm now armed with the post processing knowledge that I had previously lacked. I hope to get some good quality images which I'll post the next time I can see the moon. Lunar photography is the only reason I bought the teleconverter, but I have decided to try the next set of Lunar photos both with, and without it to compare the image quality.

Here is the lens attached to my camera...

500mm Prime lens attached to my Nikon D5000

Lens aperture and focus controls

As you can see from the picture to the left, the controls are very basic. As it has no electronic components in the lens I'll have to use my camera on fully manual mode. I have a basic understanding of apertures and shutter speeds etc... so this shouldn't be a problem.

I took a very quick picture with it, and what surprised me was the minimum focus distance, it's massive! I'd say it's at least a good 20ft, however, I suppose for a lens with this kind of focal length that's normal. You're not exactly going to be standing within that kind of distance of your subject.
Sorry about the picture quality by the way, I had to use my phone to obtain these shots.
Also waiting for my at home was a copy of Adobe Photoshop Elements 10. I've been playing around with trials of this, and Lightroom 3 but this came out on top despite the lesser RAW editing capabilities. It's just so much easier to use in my opinion. Even though I could have gotten my hands on Lightroom for the bargain price of £39.99 I knew I wouldn't get as much out of it as this. 

I've received a lot of feedback from people over the last few months, and what's obvious is that I don't do enough post processing. So now it's time to start! 


I hope to post some pictures of the moon this week, hopefully they'll turn out OK. I also intend to make my own Lightbox for macro and close up photography but it depends if I find the time. Tomorrow is photo challenge day so I'll blog again tomorrow, discussing the results and the coming weeks challenge!