Great stuff John. The mini is definitely on my list for the end of year sales. Seems to solve all the niggles I have with the MSM as a super compact tracker. Agree about the Samyang 24mm. I only really use it for time-lapse and video these days. Cant complain about the size and weight through!
It's a great little tracker once the app is setup, you just turn it on and away it goes without the need to connect your phone, and light years ahead of the MSM.
@@johnrutterphotography I was rocking the H-Alpha t-shirt out on the Rooisand ranch in Namibia (just got back home this morning after a 2 week session) - quite a few of the boys were like "where did you get that hey?" - good job on the design mate ⭐
Absolutely stunning work once John, your enthusiasm is so infectious. I can’t wait for us to have dark skies once again here in Scotland, take care mate
New follower here and have been loving your videos man. Keep up the great work! I know you have one astro modified and one full spectrum camera, which one did you use for this shoot?
Hi John Thanks for all your content - absolutely love it. Learning so much. I'm an amateur photographer from Tassie and I'm planning my first tracked milky way panorama in a few weeks - looking to buy my first star tracker. I'm tossing up between the Mini and the Pro 2i, with budget being a bit of a concern. I'll be shooting on a Sigma 50mm 1.4 DG HSM with a Sony A7C, so payload shoould be okay for both. But I've heard the Mini struggles with timing out/failing on the app side, with disconnects/resets etc. Have you found this to be an issue? Just worried I'll get 10 photos in on a perfect night and stuff up the shot because the app failed on me! Any advice would be super useful. :) Thanks mate - keep up the great work!
Another stunner for sure! Looks like a nice laid back adventure 👌. And the result... dude, you always make me (and astrobros) jaleous 😅. I wonder, would you be able to simplify the setup even more by not putting on the counterweight? I've been using the adventurer pro with a way too heavy sigma 14-24 without the counterweight without any tracking issues.
Haha cheers mate. You could definitely use it without the counterweight to make it even smaller, I have done the same with my star adventurer and it works perfect
Awesome video John! And Epic photograph 😀I hope you don’t mind me asking, and no problem if not, with the h-alpha data do you keep the settings the same or raise the ISO? And do you align with photoshop or something like astropixel processor to stack the h-alpha or all in photoshop?
I don't know anything about tracking mounts, counterweights, or what Z brackets do so I didn't understand much of what you were saying but I gather you are following the milky way along the polar axis using a bunch of stacked images, and then using the resulting image to replace the background sky of the foreground picture you took? If that is correct then what happens to the rotating ground in the stacked images? Do you crop it out and zoom in before placing the layer behind the tree?
To do tracked images you need to take 2 images, one for the foreground with the tracker turned off so the ground is sharp and the sky is blurry, and a second image where the tracker is on and the sky is sharp and the ground is blurry, in post production you put the 2 images together to create the final image.
@@johnrutterphotography : OK. So the back ground image isn't a stack but a single rotating shot, plus an extra layer with the microwave filter image? Thanks for the reply I will try watching it again.
Nice one, John - what an awesome image to finish with. Amazing what’s achievable with that sort of gear. I’ve had my eye on the SAM for some time because the bigger version is a unit, and it tends to move its way around my backpack taking out anything it finds along the way. On the SAM, do they still have the annoying cheap battery compartment? Every time I use the bigger brother, I’m 🤬🤬🤬!
I was wondering how your experience with the clip in the Halpha filter is going. I remember Alyn Wallace saying all the filters he tried for "Sony" had huge distortions and artifacts. Is your filter having such a problem? Could you please tell me what brand it is?
I haven't seen any issues with the clip in like that, but I do only use the Ha part, I remove the stars and register the images together so they are identical before I blend it in
@@johnrutterphotography Thank you, John. Have you tested it with a shorter focal length like 14mm? After refreshing my mind, I should correct myself. Due to the fact that Allan's camera was full spectrum, he was looking for a UV-IR cut filter. For night videography, I am considering doing the Sony full spectrum modification instead of just Halpha modification since it adds 1.5 stops more light. Do you have experience with a sony full spectrum camera by chance? Thanks again
Thanks for the clip. i'm realy confused with the set up of tracking mounts . you polar align the mount but the camera is pointing to the left . how does that work ?
The least expensive pano head I use is found on Amazon $109 Neewer Gimbal Head Panoramic Head Camera Tripod Head Aluminium Alloy with Standard 1/4 inch Quick Release Plate and Carry Bag Max Load 22 Pounds Compatible with Nikon Canon Sony DSLRs The question and you did not show was did the device rotate the camera every 15 degrees or so automatically with say the app or did you physically move the camera? A few things you need to show is the shutter settings for the lens mm and the camera model just saying it looks like you are doing very long exposures vs a single shot every 15 degrees of 6sec using A7S/M3 or A7iii 4.75s. Using the manual rig with camera NR on a 200 degree pano can be done in like 1 1/2 minutes using the stepper on the base set at 15 degrees going to next step during NR mode this setting allows Lr to merge to panorama even over water at a beach with just a little shore and surf showing. Your setup looks like a tower and each section needs leveling along with pointing to the star constellation for either north or south poles, looks like you need a step stool or ladder to level the top, try doing that in the dark and maybe some wind to boot. So assuming you are doing long exposure and just turning camera physically for each section of pano! Do you use a stepper under the camera to goto the next 15 degree or so and do you climb a ladder to get to the camera? Bravo on the captures.
I did mention in the video all the exposure times mate, 2 minute exposures on the 24mm lens, there is no pano heads or steppers or anything like I mentioned, all i used was a ballhead and moved the camera for each frame. It's not tall at all as you can see me standing next to it.
Awesome video as always! Not sure when you did your last walk through of your processing work flow but this one would be great to see especially with the added Ha data. Thanks again! You are a huge inspiration! Keep'em coming!
