Moon gear

MarkydeSad

MarkydeSad

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Firstly, apologies for my insensitive reply in the 'Lens' thread. I feel bad about that :(

Secondly, what's the best gear for photographing the moon?

I have a Sony A200 and on advice I used my Sigma 70-300 on full zoom. Also on advice I used the following settings:

f8, 100 ISO, 1/100 sec, manual mode, spot metering

I used a tripod and a 10 second shutter delay, shot in RAW, but the results were disappointing. So disappointing that I binned all the photos

Is my equipment rubbish or am I rubbish?

Any advice?

Cheers :)
 
Shame you binned them all... Atmospherics will play a significant effect on the iq of moon shots. Aim to get the shot when the moon is as high in the sky as possible. I don't know why, but I never get as good shots using f8 as I do at f5.6 with my 55-250. If you have one left somewhere and can post it that would help.
 
10 Secs is much too long, you want a quick shutter, tonight was very diffuclt, very bright moon. next time try F5.6, 1/400 ISO 100 or 200, check the LCD between shots, then adjust as needed, if still a white blob speed the shutter up, if too dark slow it down.
 
He shot at 1/100, 10 seconds was the shutter delay to counter vibration I'm assuming?! That's how I read it.

Trouble at 300mm is the moon won't be big in the frame so you'll have to do some heavy cropping which is going to show up the softness of the lens, maybe that's the problem? Also, for exposure just do some trial and error using the rear screen and histo, should only take a couple of shots to work out the correct exposure :)
 
jgs001 said:
Shame you binned them all... Atmospherics will play a significant effect on the iq of moon shots. Aim to get the shot when the moon is as high in the sky as possible. I don't know why, but I never get as good shots using f8 as I do at f5.6 with my 55-250. If you have one left somewhere and can post it that would help.
Click to expand...

I didn't keep any. The moon was at about 30 degrees but it was a clear, cold night. Thanks, mate. I'll try a larger aperture :)

cosmix3 said:
10 Secs is much too long, you want a quick shutter, tonight was very diffuclt, very bright moon. next time try F5.6, 1/400 ISO 100 or 200, check the LCD between shots, then adjust as needed, if still a white blob speed the shutter up, if too dark slow it down.
Click to expand...

1/100 sec. I had a 10 second delay between pressing the shutter button and the pic being taken :)

Richard Peters said:
He shot at 1/100, 10 seconds was the shutter delay to counter vibration I'm assuming?! That's how I read it.

Trouble at 300mm is the moon won't be big in the frame so you'll have to do some heavy cropping which is going to show up the softness of the lens, maybe that's the problem? Also, for exposure just do some trial and error using the rear screen and histo, should only take a couple of shots to work out the correct exposure :)
Click to expand...

Yep, I cropped it. Maybe I should get a faster lens. Or a better camera! :eek:
 
If the lens is soft at 300mm, try it at 250. If you get the conditions on your side, and it's better at 250, you can still get good results even cropping hard.
 
jgs001 said:
If the lens is soft at 300mm, try it at 250. If you get the conditions on your side, and it's better at 250, you can still get good results even cropping hard.
Click to expand...

Is that the way it works?

The further down you go, the sharper it gets?

This photography lark is a tad confusing, I must say! :thinking:
 
Sorry I don't know. Just someone said the 70-300 might be a bit soft at 300. I use my 55-250 at 250 and it works well. I think a lot depends on the lens itself.
 
Just had a peek at the exif on my last full moon shots and the best exposed was at 1/750th, f/8 @ ISO400. (That's pretty close to the "sunny, f/16" rule of thumb) I was using a Sigma 170-500 at the long end and trying to handhold, so the results weren't as sharp as I'm prepared to post!!!

Don't worry too much about a little noise in moon shots - convert them to B&W and most of it becomes invisible!
 
Here's my moon pic taken with the Tamron 70-300. This was hand held as i was just experimenting with exposures etc. Oh well it say's i'm not allowed to post images?? but it's in my gallery.
 
This was taken at 400mm, 1/400th, f5.6, ISO100 and handheld (IS on) on Tuesday night. I know it's far from the best moon shot, but I'm pretty happy with it at my second attempt. Just keep experimenting and trying different settings. Even at 400mm this was a very heavy crop, and needed a lot of sharpening in PP.

3095957376_2949fb3210_o.jpg
 
MarkydeSad said:
Yep, I cropped it. Maybe I should get a faster lens. Or a better camera! :eek:
Click to expand...


It's not your camera! It's your lens...and I'm not knocking your lens, it's just not long enough to get you one of those beautiful moon photos you see in National Geographic or elsewhere. You need something a lot closer to 1200 mm and a tripod built like a tank (or hang a 20# sand bag from it). After I bought my 80-400 Nikkor lens I rushed out to "shoot the moon" and learned very quickly that even though the lens is very sharp, it's still not near long enough.

Now that I've been all negative about it...you can get some nice shots with your lens...just not shots that are going to show footprints up there.
 
Richard, that's a good shot.

This is one I took at 250mm, handheld, the EXIF is in the border.

IMG_9582.jpg


To give some idea of the cropping... Here's the uncropped version
IMG_9559-Version2.jpg


As Hunter says, if you want to get real close, without any cropping, you really need 1200mm, any more than this, and you will start needing to mosaic the images.
I posted a shot taken at this FL using my telescope ) 600mm, and a 2x teleconverts a few days ago.
 
i tried this last night, quickly as it was cold and still playing

think i had iso at 400, f6.5, s at ranges from 1/100 to 1/200, with my sony 18-200, all i got was a bright blob

will try lowering the iso next time.

what's the cheapest option for more range for the sony for the likes of moon shots?
 
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