– Deep Sky Astrophotography for Beginners. If you don’t have those expensive telescopes and tracking devices, you can try using image stacking techique to get some good results.

– For long trips, I usually do some homework and prepare a spreadsheet with sunrise/sunset times for each location for each day. It is good to be prepared, but I was always hoping to have a more dynamic way of determining sunset and sunrise times. UTMDATA for S60 Symbian-based mobile phones – this small freeware application runs on the mobile phone, can read current GPS position from the built-in or external receiver and calculate current sunrise and sunset times.

– I have also spent some time this week, exploring different ways to fit graduated filters on super wide-angle lenses like Canon 14mm F2.8 II. Here are some useful forum topics and guides:

– Using a Cokin X-Pro filter on the Sigma 12-24 lens
– DPReview forum: 14-24 with graduated ND filters
– DPReview forum: Help! Polarizing Filter On The 14mm II Lens
– FredMiranda forum: Nikon 14-24 on 1Ds3 + filters question
– FredMiranda forum: dusk ambience

I think I’ll try to make my own holder for Cokin X-Pro filters that would work on 14mm. I’ll post my results.

In this weekly links post:

– Keith Luitit PhotoBlog. It is in the MUST SEE category. It looks like he is the first who has combined tilt-shifting and time-lapse photography together, producing some great videos of Sydney. Currently he has 4 videos availble in his blog.

– We have some disturbing developmens around the Internet Filter here in Australia. Currently, government plans to make such filter mandatory for all users without opt-out option. Please visit http://nocleanfeed.com/ to see what you can do to stop it.

– In the Canon 5DMarkII category we have a couple of RAW images posted on akihabaranews.com, taken by pre-production Canon 5D Mark II.

As I mentioned in my last weekly links, I was planning to get one of these R-Straps. I received one today and, so far, I think that it is the most convenient camera strap I have ever tried or seen. And it is not expensive as well.

I’ve got RS-1 version – nice and simple, I don’t really need all those pockets for flash cards and mobile phones.

Have a look at this nice youtube video (not mine):

Official webpage: http://www.blackrapid.com/
http://www.camerasdirect.com.au is their Australian dealer.

– Tech Tips by Chuck Westfall, Canon USA’s main media spokesman
– Photomicrography,  everything about “the taking of photographs through a microscope”
– Rapid R-Strap Review, seems to be very convenient, I will be getting one of these very soon. Official website and australian distributor
– How to hold a camera, by Joe McNally

Today’s links list is short and simple:

– Powerful work from James Nachtwey
– Robert Benson Pocket Wizard madness
– Stock photography blog by Yuri Arcurs

 Enjoy!