So what to you do with a camera with a built in 687mm lens? Why, shoot Saturn and the moon of course. Only a goof would fail to notice that he (or she) had a telescope in a tiny package with this kind of reach.
And this evening we finally saw the sun peek through. Thank you oh great man in the sky …
Today also happens to be the moon’s perigee, which is a real event when it coincides with a full moon. The moon is measurably larger at perigee, although astronomers suggest that it is not actually perceptibly larger. Buy hey … what do they know :-)
So here, for your dining pleasure, is the largest moon of the year. And remember … the HS25 shoots only JPEG.
Fuji GS25 100iso f/6.4 1/320 Lightroom 4.1
And here is the same image again from CS6 beta.
I tend to lean towards a darker presentation in CS … not quite sure why. Click on either to get the full sized image … pretty close to 100% crop. I think the camera acquitted itself very nicely, especially considering that this is JPEG. Smearing is contained and the crater detail on the bottom left edge is quite clear.
I’d bet that the HS30 is just plain magnificent, handled correctly.
And now … Saturn. In all its glory … and this is pretty glorious in my opinion.
Fuji HS25 800iso f/6.4 1/25 CS6 BETA
I won’t lie to you … that’s my second crack at it and it took a lot of processing to get this level of clarity. But I’m pretty gobsmacked to get that out of a JPEG shooting camera with a 1/2” sensor. Optical magnification wins again.
Conclusion
What conclusion can we draw? Great lens at full zoom. The JPEG engine behaves very well once you turn all the settings to low or off. This is a nice camera to shoot. Feels pretty much exactly like a dSLR, and I should know. I’ve shot plenty of different Nikons …
