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06-03-2011, 09:35 PM   #61
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The sensor can move freely on the "X and Y axis" but only in a small semi-circle, it's limited by Pentax .

06-03-2011, 11:55 PM   #62
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For those still in doubt about the capabilities:
Astrotracer, Simple Nav (no maps of course) and Electronic Compass.

GPS UNIT O-GPS1?PENTAX
06-04-2011, 04:04 AM   #63
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It sure would be nice if Pentax USA released the same information in English. Maybe they didn't have it in their budget.....

06-04-2011, 05:42 AM   #64
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The times máx. function Astrotracer : 300 sec / 5 minutes,
with lenses inferior to 50mm (example: 35, 18, 14, 10)

with lenses superiors to 50mm the times are inferiors to the 5 minutes, based on the declination

the system is interesting for long exhibitions of not more than 5 minutes, but it is not been worth for exhibitions superiors like 20, 30, 40 or even 1 hour.

Greetings

Info Oficial
PENTAX O-GPS1 A handy GPS unit for digital SLR cameras, offering innovative features for effortless tracking and photographing of celestial bodies

06-04-2011, 09:39 AM   #65
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That Pentax JP site this posted has an example of how the astrotracer can improve your astrophotography: ??????????GPS UNIT O-GPS1?PENTAX

But looking at the pair of photos with the tree, I would guess that you wouldn't want any nearby still-life objects in the shot or else the SR would blur it out while correcting for the star trail.

- Jason

Last edited by inferno10; 06-04-2011 at 09:51 AM.
06-04-2011, 10:01 AM   #66
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QuoteOriginally posted by inferno10 Quote
That Pentax JP site this posted has an example of how the astrotracer can improve your astrophotography: ??????????GPS UNIT O-GPS1?PENTAX

But looking at the pair of photos with the tree, I would guess that you wouldn't want any nearby still-life objects in the shot or else the SR would blur it out while correcting for the star trail.

- Jason
but with taking one more shot and using PS that could be corrected?
06-04-2011, 10:06 AM   #67
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QuoteOriginally posted by interested_observer Quote
It sure would be nice if Pentax USA released the same information in English. Maybe they didn't have it in their budget.....

PREPARE THE BROOM CLOSET!

- Jason

06-04-2011, 11:10 AM   #68
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QuoteOriginally posted by inferno10 Quote
PREPARE THE BROOM CLOSET!

- Jason
I lol'ed. Hard.
06-04-2011, 02:35 PM   #69
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QuoteOriginally posted by dankoBanana Quote
but with taking one more shot and using PS that could be corrected?
I noted that earlier - shouldn't be hard to take a shot that has a static foreground and cut them together, taking photos like these you'll probably be doing some stacking anyway - given the overall dark tone of extended exposure night photography I doubt anyone would notice, and it would probably be an easy edit (given the large amount of plain black space!).
06-04-2011, 03:59 PM   #70
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QuoteOriginally posted by inferno10 Quote
But looking at the pair of photos with the tree, I would guess that you wouldn't want any nearby still-life objects in the shot or else the SR would blur it out while correcting for the star trail.

- Jason
You don't even want to take pictures close to still-life objects. The horizon ist almost everywhere to hazy; for most of us also lightpolluted.
Exceptions are some extremely rural and dry areas.
06-04-2011, 05:58 PM   #71
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QuoteOriginally posted by Nasus Quote
You don't even want to take pictures close to still-life objects. The horizon ist almost everywhere to hazy; for most of us also lightpolluted.
Exceptions are some extremely rural and dry areas.
I've seen photos of still objects in astro-photos. They're usually buildings, statues, trees, hills, mountains, or some other landscape-ish type feature. Beautiful photos, but they were entirely star trail type astro-photos. I would think that a regular tracking mount would have this problem too since you're moving the whole camera to keep the stars "still".
06-05-2011, 11:57 AM   #72
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A working regular tracking mount, for sure it would have the same problem. A broken one, probably not
06-06-2011, 04:58 AM   #73
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Something is just dawning on me when reading through the discussion...

This unit interests me a lot since I was planning on doing some astrophotography (weather permitting) later this year when visiting Southern Argentina. And the location/heading data would be of great interest to me to locate the no doubt many landscapes I will be photographing along the roads.

Won't I be able to use it in the southern hemisphere at all? This would be a real disadvantage to me because I would expect to use this too on my next Safari(s), which is probably in Africa south of the equator too...

Tx in advance for clarifying this!!

Wim
06-06-2011, 06:24 AM   #74
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QuoteOriginally posted by Ishpuini Quote
Something is just dawning on me when reading through the discussion...

This unit interests me a lot since I was planning on doing some astrophotography (weather permitting) later this year when visiting Southern Argentina. And the location/heading data would be of great interest to me to locate the no doubt many landscapes I will be photographing along the roads.

Won't I be able to use it in the southern hemisphere at all? This would be a real disadvantage to me because I would expect to use this too on my next Safari(s), which is probably in Africa south of the equator too...

Tx in advance for clarifying this!!

Wim
It should work pole to pole. The augmentation system part will only work in the locations that the systems cover but that has to do with more accuracy (getting location data the is less the 10 meters) and reliably (getting reports an the status of the satellites) not getting the basic GPS data.

DAZ
06-06-2011, 07:36 AM - 1 Like   #75
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Hi,

I consider this great news. I don't like add-on GPS receivers in general, as I laid out elsewhere. Because external loggers then provide a superior solution. But here, Pentax did it right and added the necessary innovation over an external logger feature:
  • compass
  • earth rotation tracking
  • write back heading info into exif
The good news is that Pentax didn't stop to innovate and stupefy the competition. I hope this is going to continue to more photographically relevant innovations in the near future

I hope that a firmware update will write both level angles information as well. As the combined info would then identify the photographed region of sky.

QuoteOriginally posted by Lowell Goudge Quote
gps don't need calibration, they know where north is all the time
not true

QuoteOriginally posted by pxpaulx Quote
I guess if it can tell where magnetic north is, combined with the gyroscope and gps it can know its 3rd position, we'll have to wait and see.
The amazing thing is that almost all sensors are used in this solution:
- GPS position (3D)
- compass heading (1D)
- level meter angles (2D)
- focal length
which gives the full 7D beam parameters of a shot, enough to compute a list of all stationary photographed objects, be it sky or earth-bound

Google is working on a database which is fine-grain enough to return the names of photographed buildings if you upload the exif from such a pentax shot.

Somebody here in Germany actually filed a patent covering the case where a camera then would point you to an interesting photographic opportunity (suggesting direction and zoom). It was meant to be joke patent but now all of a sudden, could become reality

However, it won't replace a scope with mount and tracking motor. Typically 2 min for 200mm focal length won't compete with a scope able to track 2000mm for an hour ... OTOH, if you have to live on a budget, it may be good enough to stack images.

QuoteOriginally posted by v5planet Quote
I'm a bit skeptical of that... it would need to track the stars in both right-ascension and declination -- you could simulate this if the sensor could both rotate and tilt, but I don't know if it can do the latter and in any event would stretch the image like in a tilt-shift lens. Hm.
not true.

rotate and shift are sufficient to compensate for the earth rotation's first order effects. And the K-5 sensor can both rotate and shift. Near the polar star, rotation is the dominant effect (small), near the horizon, shift is it (large).

Tilt would only be required to compensate for second order effects as required for stacking multiple photos together. So, this would have to be done in a separate post processing step but would still be feasible. But for a single ~2 min exposure, tilt is neglegible.

QuoteOriginally posted by Arpe Quote
It only knows position. It calculates North when the unit is moved in some direction, but when still, it only knows its position and the direction of last movement, so if you turn it on its axis, it won't know where north is.
not true.

The PENTAX O-GPS1 features a compass with ±5° accuracy. The compass accuracy is actual key to the proper functioning of star tracking. If you rotate the sensor around an axis off 5° from the true axis then this will be the main source of error. It is rather straightforward to compute the remaining star trail sizes (in pixels) from this accuracy.

QuoteOriginally posted by Raybo Quote
it's a 5 min max with a 300mm lens (think about it).
In this case the sensor would not need to "rotate".
Its more like 1.5 min for 300mm and it will need to rotate as well. Under 50mm and with 5 min, rotation may actually be the main effect you need to compensate for. It certainly is if the polar star is within the image.

Last edited by falconeye; 06-06-2011 at 07:41 AM.
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