Photographing the moon

[SteveGriffin]

I have been trying to capture some 1st quality shots of the moon in the lead up to the full moon on the 13th. I am having some difficulty.

I seem to be getting some motion blur presumably caused by the shutter operation.
Using a Bigma and 2.0x teleconvertor on my D70. Mounted on a Benro C227 CF tripod with a Markins M-10 head.

Can anyone suggest any strategies to assist in stabilizing the camera / lens. My inital thoughts are towards increasing the mass/ inertia by covering everything in wheat bags. Does this sound reasonable??

Open to suggestions

[Gordon]

Steve, use the minimum shutter speed possible, and beyond that you are already on the right track- more mass is better. Use mirror lock if you have it... this may involve kidnapping the manager of Nikon and forcing him to fix the firmware to allow it when taking an image (rather than only when cleaning the sensor) with the D70

There is another way, you take a 0.5-1 sec exposure and make your own shutter using a black card with a slot cut into it. when the shutter opens you move the slot across the front of the lens at the right speed to get the desired exposure. Trial and error needed for the right width of slot and speed across the lens, but it is easy enough to do.

If that fails, just use 1/500 and the flash! ... I've lost count of the number of times people have asked me if I used flash for my lunar photos.

Gordon

[gstark]

Steve,

What sort of exposure paramatersare you using?

Look for our Sydney Night Shoot last year, and you'll see one image that I posted from this event, of the full moon, which I shot using something like 1/400 @ f/8, handheld, using the 80-400 VR.

So, start with that as an exposure setting, and see where it takes you.

And the Bigma with a TC? That would certainly present challenges in getting any sort of a sharp image, I suspect. Loose the TC, and see where that takes you.

[SteveGriffin]

Thanks Gary & Gordon.
I have been using the Bigma at 400mm which it seems to be fairly sharp at and f8. It isn't particularly sharp at the 500mm stop for sure.

Oddly the shots with the TC seem a bit better than the ones without.

I will try 'bagging it tonight and see how it goes

[robboh]

Steve,

I recall reading somewhere that you will need to keep your shutter speed relatively high unless you have a tracking telescope, otherwise you will get issues with movement of the moon causing slight blur as well. I do have it written down somewhere, but IIRC 1/125th and faster should be fine.

If you dont have a remote shutter release, then using the timer seems to work quite well.

Other than that, yes, more mass to help tripod stability and a firm stable base for the tripod. Do you get much heavy traffic where you are? The vibrations from trucks can really mess things up if you are on concrete. I think the Benro has a hook underneath for hanging weight (just dont let it swing) and a wheatbag on the lens might help as well.

[Antsl]

Guys, if you have a think about it the moon is just another sunlit landscape just like on earth. The fact that it is lit by the sun means that we can see it in the sky during the day and it is also bright enough to provide the earth with some illumination at night.

The exposure for the moon is roughly the same as you would give for a landscape exposure during the day. If you want to include it in landscape images you are better off making photographs just before sunrise or just after sunset, otherwise you will not cope with the contrast of the moon against the darkness of the night.

[Gordon]

Guys, if you have a think about it the moon is just another sunlit landscape just like on earth. The fact that it is lit by the sun means that we can see it in the sky during the day and it is also bright enough to provide the earth with some illumination at night.
...

I wrote extensively about this a month or 2 ago when someone was wondering about lunar exposure ... its not really what Steve's original question in this topic was though, but a search of the archives could be useful if you are wondering about it.

Gordon

[DionM]

Sure its not moon movement?

Look fwd to your results ... I am going to try with my 400 5.6 Canon L prime and my Sigma 2x TC this month.

[Gordon]

Sure its not moon movement?

Look fwd to your results ... I am going to try with my 400 5.6 Canon L prime and my Sigma 2x TC this month.

Its unlikely to be "moon movement" (in reality Earth's rotation less the moons real orbital motion) when correctly exposing with a DSLR and a telephoto lens. The sky appears to rotate 15 arcseconds per second at the celestial equator, (the Moon at slightly less than this) so if you are exposing at faster than 1/15th sec the apparent motion will always be less than 1", an angle none of the telephoto lenses being discussed here will resolve.
Vastly more likely is camera shake, something astrophotographers have been having to deal with for a very long time. The average tripod just is not stable enough when working with focal lengths in the order of 1000mm.

Gordon

[Slider]

Steve, check with Oneputt. I have seen a shot he took of the moon with that same lens and teh D70 and it is amazing.

[SteveGriffin]

The image below is from the 11th ie a couple of nights before the full moon. It was cloudy in Brisvegas the next 3 nights but I will persist.

[big pix]

...... but it is not blue........

[Mr Rotty]

...and it's not made of cheese

[SteveGriffin]

......but it does show little lumps and craters on it which is a big improvement on my first efforts.

Thanks particularly to Gordon for his words of wisdom