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After seeing some great moon shots taken using the 70-300G, I spent an hour outside playing around with the camera and tripod, unfortunately I had a few tree's to dodge to get a clean shot, but here are two where you can see a bit of detail.


And this one.


Now they aren't fantastic, but I have to credit the forum, as my previous attempt came out so bad you wouldn't have guessed it was the moon.

I also had a muck around and came up with this, out of interest why is there additional ghosting (like the upside down backtofront "r") .


Edit: (Corrected my Sony spelling)

Not sure if the Nikon's as much a pain as the Sigma but my Sigma has sometimes got trouble focussing on the moon. Is that your problem I wonder? Or maybe your exposure time is too long.

I'm no expert at all as I've only been playing with my D70 for about a month but you may have to try a combination of shortish exposure times (to kill the shake) and higher ISO to get a useable shot.

The shots of mine that have worked reasonably OK were ranged 1/80 @ f8 to 1/800 @ f5.6 at a slightly higher ISO


This one 1/800 at f5.6 handheld last month.

Craig. Good first post. You've nailed something I have yet to try in the light painting (backwards even - or was that done in PP?). I can't see the r ghost you refer to.

So far as moon shots - keep an eye out for the next full moon and have a go as well.

Wow Paulvdb1, that is a great shot ( and hand held ?)

I was taking mine on a tripod, and using the time so I wasn't anywhere near the tripod (it was standing on a concrete slab) to avoid shake.

Every time I see someone elses Moon shots, I feel like running outside and trying to improve my own. I will definitely try the settings you used and see if I can get them working for me.
Thanks!

For moon shots try manual focussing

sirhc55 wrote:For moon shots try manual focussing

Yes - I'll certainly try that next time to stop the stupid Sigma from hunting all over the place.

Hi Craig

I also shot some images of the moon the other night and have to say, a full moon is easier to shoot, so don't get disheartened.

Also, have you sharpened your image at all? You will find (well in my case anyway) that the images do have a reasonable amount of sharpening. I hand hold mine with generally some part of me leaning against something stable, but I still don't get really clear images.....sharpening in photoshop certainly helps out.

Well done on the light writing.

Cheers
Deb

HappyFotographer wrote:Hi Craig

I also shot some images of the moon the other night and have to say, a full moon is easier to shoot, so don't get disheartened.

Also, have you sharpened your image at all? You will find (well in my case anyway) that the images do have a reasonable amount of sharpening. I hand hold mine with generally some part of me leaning against something stable, but I still don't get really clear images.....sharpening in photoshop certainly helps out.

Well done on the light writing.

Cheers
Deb

Hand held leaning over my car worked a treat to get a moon shot a few months back. Highly recommended. Downside is the car makes a Gitzo tripod look cheap.

stubbsy wrote:Craig. Good first post. You've nailed something I have yet to try in the light painting (backwards even - or was that done in PP?). I can't see the r ghost you refer to.

So far as moon shots - keep an eye out for the next full moon and have a go as well.

No PP on any of these photo's, only resizing them and croping them with (Irfanview all I have on my laptop here).



The "ghosting" I was referring to is right below the "r" there seems to be a much fainter upside down backwards "r" and similar with the "C". A few of my very bad moon shots came out a green "ghost" of the moon. (Sorry I'm not upto speed with the technical term for it..).

sirhc55 wrote:For moon shots try manual focussing

Oh, sorry still learning.. I should of mentioned how I shot the photo's right ?

All of them were done with Manual Focus, as I was shooting through the branches of a tree... on Auto Focus, it too lovely shots of the tree and not the moon

Alpha_7-D70 wrote:

stubbsy wrote:Craig. Good first post. You've nailed something I have yet to try in the light painting (backwards even - or was that done in PP?). I can't see the r ghost you refer to.

So far as moon shots - keep an eye out for the next full moon and have a go as well.

No PP on any of these photo's, only resizing them and croping them with (Irfanview all I have on my laptop here).



The "ghosting" I was referring to is right below the "r" there seems to be a much fainter upside down backwards "r" and similar with the "C". A few of my very bad moon shots came out a green "ghost" of the moon. (Sorry I'm not upto speed with the technical term for it..).

Took a while for my tired old eyes to see it. Doesn't show on my CRT, but can see it on my LCD. Weird. No idea of the cause.

I went out tonight and tried to improve on my earlier shots.
Not happy with them, but I think there is a bit of improvement, I'm atleast getting a better feel for what works and what doesn't.

Alpha ... I get exactly the same types of moon shots with my Nikon 70-300mm G (on tripod). I guess that the lens has trouble focusing to infinity. Also, manual focusing produces identical results.

I did try the lens at less than 200mm and the results came out a little sharper.

Alpha... can I ask that you retain the exif info in any shots you post.

Helps us all understand what you have actually done so we can provide more meaningful comment... oh... and also helps others, looking to learn, work out how to you've done it !!!

cheers,

Michael.

Alpha,

As Kamran said, 200mm will produce better results. I think that the 70-300G is better treated as a 70-200 or 70-220 - just forget the last bit of the zoom range. Also, it may help to push the exposure to the right of the histogram (and pull it back in post) to avoid the noise. Spot metering the very brightest part of the moon at +1 1/3 to +1 2/3 EV compensation might be the go.

Here is one that I posted a while back for another thread as an example of a moon shot with the 70-300G. EXIF is 2.5s, f10, ISO200, spot metered as described, 200mm with 70-300G. Camera on tripod, and I used a remote. Variable (and fast moving) cloud was playing havoc with metering... hence some blown highlights - I was shooting manual mode but probably would have been better in Aperture and dial in EV comp so camera can adjust itself. The image is a crop and I applied a fair degree of USM (more than usual -I am usually fairly conservative with USM) to the Luminance channel in LAB mode. Note the long exposure time (I was shooting through cloud) - camera shake was not an issue and does not appear to be an issue with your shots. Your shots seem to be suffering underexposure and a soft at 300mm lens.

http://www.pixspot.com/albums/userpics/DSC_0979.jpg

The 70-300G can produce reasonable results but high quality glass it is not. It is a case of learning its limitations and using it accordingly.


Cheers

Matt PS. MJ brings up a fair point about exif. Better to convert to sRGB (if otherwise) and 8bit then "save as" jpeg... all in PS (not "save for web" which strips exif), so that we get a better idea of what is going on.

Thanks for all the feedback, firstly I haven't tried using the 70-300G at 200 I'll try that next time, see how it fairs.

I didn't orginally have PS (I have it now, but haven't learnt to use it) so I just cropped the shots in Irfanview and uploaded them to PixSpot, I didn't realise I was stripping the EXIF data.

There is a cropped version,
ISO 200, f 9.0, 1/100 sec, 300mm


Another cropped version (both of these were originally taken in RAW format (so I have learnt something ) But they are as is, no adjustments.

ISO 200, f 8.0, 1/100s, 300mm


I'll check the rest of my shots later tonight, ..... its food time now


Thanks again for the feedback, I'll try at 200 and will learn to provide the EXIF details for my shots.

Alpha_7 wrote:. . . out of interest why is there additional ghosting (like the upside down backtofront "r") .

Just to hazard a guess . . . were you using a UV filter at the time?

If so, it is caused by reflections from the sensor. Because the digital sensor is more reflective then 35mm film, it will create this "ghosting" as an image on the inside of the UV filter.

These days, when I take photos at night, and it looks like this is going to be a problem, i remove all filters.

I do actually recall reading this on the net at some point (ie. i am not just crapping on ), but forget where.

Just my $0.02,
Tristan

ozonejunkie wrote:

Alpha_7 wrote:. . . out of interest why is there additional ghosting (like the upside down backtofront "r") .

Just to hazard a guess . . . were you using a UV filter at the time?

If so, it is caused by reflections from the sensor. Because the digital sensor is more reflective then 35mm film, it will create this "ghosting" as an image on the inside of the UV filter.
Tristan

Thanks Tristan,

You got it right, I usually keep my UV filters on all the time, to protect the lens, but it makes perfect sense that is what is causing the ghosting, thanks for solving the mystery.