Getting Closer To The Moon

ronnus

ronnus

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Been looking at some of the very impressive moon pics here, had a go myself with my 70-300mm and got "okay" results... perhaps predictably I now want better!

Done a good bit of reading on here on the topic, and have got some good ideas. Short of buying a telescope or Bigma, what's the consensus on the following options?

1) Use a teleconverter with the 70-300mm and accept the potential several stops loss of light... will this be too dark? I appreciate with my lens I'll lose a fair bit of light, especially with a 2x, and that Nikon say don't use a tc with this lens.

2) Get a cheap mirror lens. I know little about these besides low cost and donut-y bokeh, but low cost sounds good :lol:

3) Try and adapt my el-cheapo spotting scope, the details of which escapes me at present. This would likely be the cheapest option, but from research it seemed complex to adapt an SLR, looks like they're most geared to compacts.

Any wisdom/other suggestions very welcome!
 
1 will work, and IMO you won't have an issue with light.
I think people underestimate just how bright the moon is.
If you have a teleconverter, I would definately use this as your first option.

If not, then maybe a bit of investigation for an dslr mount for your scope?
 
ronnus said:
Been looking at some of the very impressive moon pics here, had a go myself with my 70-300mm and got "okay" results... perhaps predictably I now want better!

Done a good bit of reading on here on the topic, and have got some good ideas. Short of buying a telescope or Bigma, what's the consensus on the following options?

1) Use a teleconverter with the 70-300mm and accept the potential several stops loss of light... will this be too dark? I appreciate with my lens I'll lose a fair bit of light, especially with a 2x, and that Nikon say don't use a tc with this lens.

2) Get a cheap mirror lens. I know little about these besides low cost and donut-y bokeh, but low cost sounds good :lol:

3) Try and adapt my el-cheapo spotting scope, the details of which escapes me at present. This would likely be the cheapest option, but from research it seemed complex to adapt an SLR, looks like they're most geared to compacts.

Any wisdom/other suggestions very welcome!
Click to expand...

I read this too and wondered if it could damage the lens. I'll be interested in the replies
 
Nikon teleconverters will not fit to the 70-300VR Nikon lens - the rear element of the lens will touch the glass element in the converter. Some 3rd party converters can be used but the image degradation they can cause may make the exercise not woth the effort.

Mirror lenses are cheap but that doughnutty bokeh can mean that the image gets very soft when there's a bright light source in the frame.
 
Doog said:
I read this too and wondered if it could damage the lens. I'll be interested in the replies
Click to expand...

From what I can tell it won't damage the lens, I believe the problem is that slow glass (cheaper variable aperture lenses like my 70-300mm) will lose so many stops of light due to the teleconverter that the whole shebang will be difficult to use. So as an example, my f3.5-5.6 lens might become as slow as f5.6-8. NOTE: my arithmetic won't be accurate here, I'm crap at working out aperture stops in my head :bonk:

The reason I speculated that a TC might work in my case is because as RacingSnake says, the moon is actually a bloody bright object, so the smaller effective aperture might be tolerable. Hope that makes sense :thinking:
 
Nod said:
Nikon teleconverters will not fit to the 70-300VR Nikon lens - the rear element of the lens will touch the glass element in the converter. Some 3rd party converters can be used but the image degradation they can cause may make the exercise not woth the effort.

Mirror lenses are cheap but that doughnutty bokeh can mean that the image gets very soft when there's a bright light source in the frame.
Click to expand...

Interesting! I'd heard the Sigma APO TC would work with my 70-300mm, but didn't know the Nikon one would be a no go :eek:
 
Number three should be easy and cheap to do .... also you should get some step ladders :)
 
Personally I think you will be better off waiting until space travel is affordable and take a SWA lens with you when in orbit around the Moon :)
Actually, on second thought, that probably won't happen in our lifetime so my conclusion is to ignore my advice and listen to those who have a clue :D
 
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