Shooting the Moon: I recently read an article on photographing the moon. I've tried this before with little success and I thought if I used the techniques in the article, it shout at...

Randyb1969 Loc: Armpit of California

I recently read an article on photographing the moon. I've tried this before with little success and I thought if I used the techniques in the article, it shout at least come out OK since the photo example looked great. So here is what I got. The first two have no editing done except cropping to get a 100% view on here. At least I hope I cropped it down enough. They may still get resized down a little. Anyway, to me the moon still looks soft and doesn't have the detail I'd hoped for. Also the surrounding sky isn't pure black. It looks like there is a lot of noise, but My ISO was at 100 and my shutter speeds were at 1/40 and 1/50 sec. The last photo has been touched up with PSe6. I upped the contrast and applied unsharp mask. It looks better, but I'm still not 100% happy with it. Can anyone give me some tips or let me know what I'm doing wrong?

205mm_ISO100_f11_1/40sec.

300mm_ISO100_f11_1/50sec

300mm_ISO100_f11_1/50sec_PS

Kenneth Pierce Loc: Campbellsville, Kentucky

Here is a link with the information you need: http://shoottokyo.com/photograph-moon

Randyb1969 Loc: Armpit of California

That's funny. That's the article I used as a reference to take these. But obviously mine did not come out nearly as well. I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

JimH Loc: Western South Jersey, USA

Randy, you'd be amazed at how much a poor atmosphere can affect an image of the moon - around here, I can get only so clear before the haze and air pollution degrades the quality. If I could, I'd head to the top of Mauna Kea or someplace like that, but alas...

I'm not sure where the armpit of California is, but if you can get to a higher elevation, away from ground light pollution and atmospheric haze, you might see a marked improvement.

Also, I just noticed that your guy used a 200mm prime L lens and a full-frame camera. That can also make a difference...

gnzlzspd Loc: Wildomar, CA

I shot the moon last night using my Nikon D40X with AFS Nikkor 70-300mm plus Teleplus 300 N-AF 1.4X for an effective 420mm. shot at 1/30 at F/11. Manual focus and a 5 seconds delayed manual shutter. Used a Manfrotto tripod with no wieghts. Picture was shot in RAW mode and finished in Photoshop Elements 9. Final image was cropped to 8X10 format.

forgot to mention ISO 100

Randyb1969 Loc: Armpit of California

JimH wrote:

Randy, you'd be amazed at how much a poor atmosphe... (show quote)

I hadn't even thought about the haze. The armpit of California= Central Valley. I'm in Lemoore which is just south of Fresno. The central Valley was recently cited for having the worst air quality in the country. I'll try again next time I'm up in the mountains. I would really like to take a trip to Yosemite anyway. I read there's an Ansel Adams gallery somewhere up there.

I had considered it could be the camera/lens combo, but I don't know how much that has to do with it. I shoot a Canon XTi and the lens was a 75-300 @ 300mm at first. Then I remember I had read somewhere that some lenses get soft at full zoom so I backed out to 200 with no marked improvement. I don't have the live view, so I was unable to focus the way the article said to, but when looking through the viewfinder it looked nice and clear.

jerm

Randyb1969 wrote:

That's funny. That's the article I used as a reference to take these. But obviously mine did not come out nearly as well. I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

It looks like you missed the focus. Does your camera have Live View? If so, use it, zoom in to 5x or 10x, and focus manually.

Randyb1969 Loc: Armpit of California

gnzlzspd wrote:

I shot the moon last night using my Nikon D40X with AFS Nikkor 70-300mm plus Teleplus 300 N-AF 1.4X for an effective 420mm. shot at 1/30 at F/11. Manual focus and a 5 seconds delayed manual shutter. Used a Manfrotto tripod with no wieghts. Picture was shot in RAW mode and finished in Photoshop Elements 9. Final image was cropped to 8X10 format.

That's a nice shot. looks clearer than mine. And other than the 1.4x extender, our equipment is pretty comparable. I forgot to mention I didn't shoot in RAW. I've read conflicting views on whether there is a significant difference in quality. At least as far as being visible. I know you have many more options when it comes to post processing. And there is some loss with JPG, but from what I've read, so long as don't continually open/edit/save over and over again, you won't see it.

Kenneth Pierce Loc: Campbellsville, Kentucky

Try a faster shutter speed, it may be that the earth and moon are moving too fast for a 50th, try it at 125. Additionally if you do not have live view, manual focus, move it to infinity and look through the viewfinder to focus by backing off of infinity a tad.

Randyb1969 Loc: Armpit of California

Kenneth Pierce wrote:

Try a faster shutter speed, it may be that the earth and moon are moving too fast for a 50th, try it at 125. Additionally if you do not have live view, manual focus, move it to infinity and look through the viewfinder to focus by backing off of infinity a tad.

That's how I did my focus. I'll give it another shot tonight and try the faster shutter and see how that works out.

jerm

Randyb1969 wrote:

I've read conflicting views on whether there is a significant difference in quality. At least as far as being visible.

You can actually enlarge the image from a RAW file to get increased resolution, the JPG format is no good at this. This is especially useful in cases where you may be cropping the image, like shots of the moon. See my post here for details: http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-1292-1.html#10417

Camera Model: Canon EOS 50D
Focal Length: 400.0mm
Aperture: f/11.0
Exposure Time: 0.013 s (1/80)
ISO equiv: 100
Exposure: Manual
Exposure Mode: Manual

400mm, cropped and enlarged using the method described.

dansparks Loc: georgia

The Ansel Adams musem and shop is on the floor of yosemite. take all day there then go to Glacier Point for the most spectacular views ofwaterfalls and rocks stunning

Raymond Loc: Portland Oregon

Moon shot hand held.

Canon T2I

Raymond Loc: Portland Oregon

Canon T2I
200 mm
F 6.3
1/250
9/8/2011

Randyb1969 Loc: Armpit of California

Thanks for the info jerm. Unfortunately, it looks like my version of camera raw doesn't do that. I opened a RAW file I had and I don't get anywhere near as many controls as I saw on your screenshots. It could be because I'm using photoshop elements or it could be because my version of camera raw is 4.2. I don't know.