My first attempt at getting the "big" moon silhouette (Page 3): Are you using a Ball Head on your tripod or a Gimbal Mount? When I switched to Gimbal Mount, the fact that I could now...

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

Nightski wrote:

So there are times when the moon is at the horizon... (show quote)

Are you using a Ball Head on your tripod or a Gimbal Mount? When I switched to Gimbal Mount, the fact that I could now balance the camera + lens immediately improved the vibration issue.

lighthouse Loc: No Fixed Abode

If you are having vibration issues with your camera on your tripod ... turn OS1 on.
I don't hesitate to do this in certain conditions.

Nightski

lighthouse wrote:

If you are having vibration issues with your camera on your tripod ... turn OS1 on.
I don't hesitate to do this in certain conditions.

Yepper. :-) Thank you for reminding me.

northcoast42 Loc: Puget Sound, Washington

Nightski wrote:

If I have the trees in focus and I am at the infinity mark on my lens will I get a sharp moon?

You work hard for your shots Nightski and it shows. Your second shot is really nice. Great "atmosphere" to it (no pun intended:). The "softness" of the moon looks like atmospheric distortion, not a focus problem. Atmospheric stability, unfortunately, is somewhat unpredictable. Some nights are better than others. As for setting your lens on infinity; having done some astrophotography in the past, I can tell you that infinity is not always infinity. Sharp star focus is often at a setting slightly less than "infinity" even on good glass. If you really want to see if infinity gets your moon in optimum focus, magnify your image 10x in live view and see where the focus is sharpest. It's difficult to do manually but might be worth your while. I'm thinking it won't be exactly on infinity.
Really enjoyed your images. Thanks for sharing

:thumbup: :thumbup:

Nightski

northcoast42 wrote:

You work hard for your shots Nightski and it shows... (show quote)

I was focusing in live view. But I was focusing on the trees, hoping that they were far enough away to get infinity with the moon. So that brings up a question.

If I am in live view, and I have my hyperfocal right, will it show the far object as being in focus? When you are looking through the viewfinder you just have to know how far away you need to be from your near object to get hyperfocal. You can't see that your far object is in focuc even if it is. Does that question make sense?

northcoast42 Loc: Puget Sound, Washington

Nightski wrote:

I was focusing in live view. But I was focusing on the trees, hoping that they were far enough away to get infinity with the moon. So that brings up a question.

If I am in live view, and I have my hyperfocal right, will it show the far object as being in focus? When you are looking through the viewfinder you just have to know how far away you need to be from your near object to get hyperfocal. You can't see that your far object is in focuc even if it is. Does that question make sense?

]

How far away were you from the tree line? I ask because I did a rough calculation based on a couple of assumptions. At 500mm f/5 I think the hyperfocal distance of your lens is around 1.7 kilometers. Increase the f stop to 6.5 and the hyperfocal distance decreases to 1.3 kilometers. Reduce your focal length to 400mm and your hyperfocal distance decreases to approximately 1.1 kilometers. At 300mm and f/5, that distance decreases to 620 meters. What you might want to consider is focusing on the moon while taking a series of images at decreasing focal lengths then see where the optimum focal distance is for where you were positioned. It's essentially the same effect as stepping further away without having to actually move. You probably wouldn't have to shorten it up much and in the process you'll provide added context to your shot while preserving the "big" moon quality of your image.