Moon shot, rubbish! help please.

Madpup

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Mark
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This is my first go at moon shot,
i was using a 300d x2 converter and the 70-200mm f4
tided it up in PS but still not good,
i used a tripod and put it on timer, i also put a polezired filter on,
any ideas where im going wrong?

thanks for looking

 
Focus issue??
 
Take off the polarizor and try a faster shutter speed, use something like 1/125 at f8 and see how it turns out, if it's still soft try again without the converter. Unless the converter is a very good one you'll not get good results from it anyway.
 
Way over exposed and slightly out of focus. The moon is a lot brighter than you might think. Manual exposure is the only way + keep reviewing until you get it right.

Must be manual focus with f4 lens and 2x so easy to be a bit out.
 
Thanks people, i'll give it another go
 
As said - try 125th at f8 for starters. Use a tripod and focus manually.
 
Here's a shot I took of the moon last night. I've also posted this on another forum I use, anyway, this was handheld at 300mm and steady shot on my Sony was used. I took the exposure down in Adobe RAW and took down the saturation so more detail could be seen. I have cropped it quite alot, but still not bad with no tripod or massive lens - only the 300mm.

Camera make: SONY
Camera model: DSLR-A100
Date/Time: 2007:01:31 22:43:10
Resolution: 774 x 726
Flash used: No
Focal length: 300.0mm (35mm equivalent: 450mm)
Exposure time: 0.0020 s (1/500)
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO equiv.: 100
Exposure bias: 0.70
Whitebalance: Auto
Metering Mode: matrix
Exposure: shutter priority (semi-auto)

DSC09687.jpg
 
Although I've never got a decent shot of the cheesemaster myself I have read loads of threads about it!
The best shots, suprisingly, are not of the full brightest moon because the sun is shining straight onto it and you lose a lot of the contours and definition - better to wait until it is 3/4
Also as RobertP mentioned it is actually very bright & like the "Sunny f16" rule of thumb there is a "Moony f11" one - So get into manual mode on a tripod & use a remote / cable release to avoid any camera movement - start at f11 or thereabouts at 1/125 and take a number of shots at different speeds & apertures (avoid slow shutter speeds under 1/15 as the moon is moving!)
If you fancy doning your "anorak" there's a real in depth artice HERE which is part of DPFWIW (digital photography for what its worth) .com - serious :geek::geek::geek: alert
... Paul ;)
 
I'd say there are two problems:

1. You're probably metering for the whole image rather than the subject, resulting in...
2. ...too long an exposure since 50% of the frame is completely dark. Your polarizer will make this much worse.

Take the polariser off, and use spot metering and maybe a higher ISO and wider aperture to get as fast a shutter speed as possible. At this focal length, the moon will move in the frame quite a bit if you use, say, a 30s exposure, resulting in blur. So get the exposure time down!
 
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