D300 Shoots Saturn – Mark II

As I explained the other day, I like shooting the night sky. And shooting Saturn is my new super fun thing to do. Shooting Saturn with only my 70-300VR is even cooler.

Of course, I started the evening with a bazooka in my hand … or more specifically on my tripod. The D300 with Tamron 1.4x and Kenko 2x teleconverters stacked, and then the 70-300VR zoom. That’s a total of 300mm x 1.5x crop x 1.4x x 2x which equals 1260mm. That’s a long focal length by any standards. Of course, I lose 3 stops of light as well. Nasty :-)

I also managed to remember this time to set the D300 to RAW mode. I’ve been shooting in JPEG for a while now, mainly because I forgot to set it back to RAW after the Globetrotters thing.

So here is the first image:

D300, 70-300VR, Tamron 1.4x, Kenko 2x

 

Now, that’s a little rough looking. I removed the 1.4x and left on the Kenko. I had poor luck with it last time, but then I made my own luck that night.

D300, 70-300VR, Kenko 2x

Now that’s more like it. Wow. So this begs the question … if the image of Saturn is that clean with only one TC on it, then how clean will it be with only the 70-300VR?

D300, 70-300VR

Surprisingly good. But I think the Kenko combo wins this round. Best compromise of clarity and magnification in this round.

Think about it … I have an image in which you can recognize Saturn and was shot with nothing but a simple 300mm consumer zoom lens. How cool is that?