The Motor Forum

woof woof · Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 12:31 am Post subject: Shoot the moon...

I thought I'd have a go and this is the result, for those interested it was taken handheld at 300mm, f8, 1/800 second, ISO400, with a Canon 20D and 70-300mm IS lens.

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woof woof's defence lawyer claimed that "Booze played no part in his typo's."

Confucius says "all reckless speeding is caused by accidents."

Matt · Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 2:25 am Post subject:

I'd taken one on the G10 this evening. Not enough zoom, though!

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Small car, big heart.

Frank Bullitt · Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 8:16 am Post subject:

Alan, if you could crop that so the bottom left 1/4 of the moon was a single picture that would look epic as the detail is very, very clear.
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Shame your mind don't shine like your possessions

DradusContact · Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 10:35 am Post subject:

Its so beautiful in a strange, scarred and barren way.
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woof woof · Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 1:21 pm Post subject:

I'm afraid that that picture is as cropped as much as possible, the 20D is not a very high resolution camera and 300mm is the longest lens I have so if that shot is cropped any more it'll pixilate. I might try again on a clearer night and with a tripod but I'll be surprised if any better is possible with this camera and lens.
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woof woof's defence lawyer claimed that "Booze played no part in his typo's."

Confucius says "all reckless speeding is caused by accidents."

Chris M Wants a V-10 · Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 11:16 pm Post subject:

I've had a few attempts at shooting the moon and it's not as easy as you think it's going to be. I bought a cheap 500mm mirror lens about a year ago but the results appear no better than with a 70-300mm lens at its longest reach. I'd like to try again, but first we need some dry, cloud-free evenings :-(
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Papped by Paul; London 2008-09-27

Boxer6 · Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 11:28 pm Post subject:

I tried for some last year, but ended up with a load of shots with 'ghosts' in every one!

Annoyed isn't the word, and I'm still not sure what caused it. IIRC, the exposures were in excess of 3 seconds, so it may have been due to the filter I suppose. Ho hum.
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Just keepin' on keeping on.

woof woof · Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 11:46 pm Post subject:

Isn't 3 seconds waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too slow? The moon / Earth will move quite a bit in that time so if you don't pan you'll get a blury mess. I think you need to shoot much more quickly, that one of mine was 1/800 sec.
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woof woof's defence lawyer claimed that "Booze played no part in his typo's."

Confucius says "all reckless speeding is caused by accidents."

Boxer6 · Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 12:06 am Post subject:

Matt · Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 12:16 am Post subject:

I find you have to use a very quick exposure to keep the detail down here, like 1/125 or so.
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Small car, big heart.

maz · Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 3:11 pm Post subject:

Didn,t you have any colour film ?

very nice picture

Boxer6 · Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 4:20 pm Post subject:

Well, I got the "3" bit right!! Exif info from the last shot of this series.

Model - NIKON D80
......
ExposureTime - 1/3 seconds
FNumber - 4.80

ISOSpeedRatings - 400
ExifVersion - 0221
DateTimeOriginal - 2008:07:20 22:42:22
DateTimeDigitized - 2008:07:20 22:42:22
ComponentsConfiguration - YCbCr
CompressedBitsPerPixel - 4 (bits/pixel)
ExposureBiasValue - 0.00
MaxApertureValue - F 4.59
MeteringMode - Multi-segment
LightSource - Auto
Flash - Not fired, compulsory flash mode
FocalLength - 155.00 mm

So, it was a fairly cool night, but with no obvious moisture in the air. Camera was tripod-mounted, and as I said before, I have a (Skylight 1B in this case) filter on the lens - as protection you know!

Any ideas anyone?
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Just keepin' on keeping on.

woof woof · Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2009 12:17 am Post subject:

I suppose one guess could be that it's a reflection between the filter and the lens. You could take the filter off and try again.

But I still think that 3 seconds is way too slow as you can surely only end up with a bright disc with little if any detail and blurring due to the earth / moon movement. With a faster shutter speed you should be able to reduce blur, make the moon less of a bright disc and bring out some detail in it. With a faster shutter speed you'll probably lose some cloud detail so you'll have to balance things to get either good moon detail, good cloud detail or a balance somewhere between the two.

With a relatively small target (the moon) in a dark sky metering accurately may not be possible but with digital it's not really a problem as you can take a picture, check it straight away and if it's not right you can alter something and have another go.

If you're at 155mm I think that you need a shutter speed of 1/200 at a minimum, even if you're using a tripod as the earth and the moon are both moving.

I don't know what lens you're using but lenses are usually at their best stopped down a little from their widest aperture so if at 155mm your max aperture is f5.6 select f8...and so on.

You could try something like the settings that I ended up with and then adjust accordingly. You should certainly be able to bring out some detail in the moon even at 155mm.
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woof woof's defence lawyer claimed that "Booze played no part in his typo's."

Confucius says "all reckless speeding is caused by accidents."