Moon pic- from a CHEAP lens

[ron chappel]

Sorry for doing what everyone seems to have done lately.
"oh no,not another damn moon pic"
I just thought everyone would be interested in how a cheap mirror lens would do the job.This is from a hanimex brand 500mm f8 lens.
While some of you may(?) be impressed-i have to admit this was the sharpest of about 25 pics,lol

As an aside,this lens (and the just as cheap vivitar model) have weird problems with exposure on the 300D body and 'blue haze'.The blue tint seems to appear and dissappear for no good reason,depending on where i point the lenses.It's easy to correct later but i wonder what it is?Could these lenses be very sensitive to UV light?
I wonder if i can make a pic display on this page this time...?http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=2047374&size=lg

[Ballen Photo]

Ron, This lens seems to have done a fine job, especially for as you say, a cheapie.
As far as the Blue haze, you could be right about the curvature of the mirror being more sensitive to that particular spectrum.
...........Bruce

[robertwgross]

Is that the image, or is that a crop from the original image?

It looks far too large for a 500mm lens of any type.

---Bob Gross---

[cowman345]

Nice shot, but the cheapness of the lens does show... there's a good deal of chromatic abberation apparent without even zooming in.
Eh, you get what you pay for, right?

-dave-

[ron chappel]

Yes good point bob.It's heavily cropped

Anyone interested in buying one of these-I must say the biggest image quality problem i've had with them is definitely camera movement blur.I tried to do a comparison between the two lenses i have handheld.
Zero chance! Lol.
Only the brightest daylight at iso 800 will get the shutter speed high enough to handhold :cry:

[robertwgross]

Many years ago, I travelled to a remote mountaintop location to shoot a total solar eclipse. In some respects, that is the same as shooting a picture of the moon (it's just that there is a big hot light behind the moon!).

However, I was going to have to purchase a lens arrangement for my SLR film camera, and I was going to have to transport the whole works to the mountaintop by my own power. Therefore, I was not going to get some state-of-the-art fast IS super lens. I had to go with something affordable and lightweight. So, I got a 500mm mirror lens and a 3x teleconverter that fit the SLR lens mount. With the tripod and everything, the camera rig amounted to about ten pounds (along with another 32 pounds of water and another 25 pounds of camping gear).

I got the shot, and I don't think that I could have made it up there if I had been carrying a *real* lens.

---Bob Gross---

[Jim_T]

Not too bad..

Either you live down under, or you were holding the camera upside down :)

The moon's inverted from a North American standpoint..

[ron chappel]

:) :) :)
I kind of wondered that