Required New 100-400 4.0-5.6L Moon Shot

[mjordan]

I finally received one of the Canon 100-400 lenses yesterday. I was sweating getting it on time, since yesterday was also the full moon and I knew the rule was that you have to get a shot of the full moon before you can use this lens... either the full moon or a bunch of ducks. :lol:

The moon didn't make it up past the trees until midnight and since my day starts at 5am I didn't have time to play around a lot. I was also cramped in the corner of the spare bedroom where I set up the camera on my tripod and couldn't really get behind it to look through the view finder easily. So it's not as good as others have done in here.

I did use mirror lockup for the first time and also my cable release. I took a few in AF but it kept wanting to focus on the black sky so I put it in manual focus but I'm not sure if I got it focused correctly. I'll have to do it better next time, but at least I got this picture in under the wire.

So here is my picture of the full moon to go with the new lens. :lol:


http://www.sitnprettyphoto.com/display/moon8746.jpg


Mike

[CyberDyneSystems]

Excellent..

Now we need the requisiste Ducks and ruler shots.. oranges are good too..

[eric1]

hi Mike,
nice shot, i like to get the moon earlier in the evening. it's not as bright, and easier to expose. if you look in the share pics forum you can find some shots i took with the 400 5.6 prime hand held, no lock up. JZaun has a nice scope pic there too. it also
helps ALOT if you shoot RAW. it's very easy to fix exposure, white
balance, and color temperature in a program like C1. hope this helps,
and like i said, NICE shot. :D

eric1

[defordphoto]

Thumbs up Mike! Great moonshoot!!

[mjordan]

Thanks guys.

Eric, I like the evening shots too... it means I don't have to stay up so late. :lol: The full moon this month, at least here in Oregon, came up late.

And I'm working on the duck shots. And if I can float a yard stick in the water with them, I can take care of both requirements at the same time. :lol:

Next Sat. will be my chance to really try the lens out. It's the annual Portland Rose Festival Dragon Boat Races. I used my 70-200 4.0L last year at this race and it will be great to have the 100-400 this year. I'll just be sure and take my monopod this time as well.

Hey, Jim, Dean said you are interested in getting some wind surfers and kite boarders up in Hood River? With your MK II and 100-400, you should be able to get some great shots. Later in the summer you can wade out to the sandbar that most of the kite boarders use and gets you right out amoung them. You would probably need two cameras, one with a wide angle and the other with the long lens to get both the close ups and the river shots. That's what I plan on doing this summer sometime.

Mike

[JZaun]

Ok you passed the Moon shot :D That is nice.. Hard to get because its so bright!

As CDS said now you gotta get a Duck and Goose :D

JZ

[mjordan]

Goose? Goose? Nobody said anything about a Goose too! :lol:

I went looking for ducks today, but it was raining and there weren't a lot of them around. They must have been Calf. ducks rather than Oregon ducks. :lol:

Mike

[JuStDaVe]

i have been trying to do moon shots for ages what is the best approach

i am a newby

i have a eos 300d

[mjordan]

The best approach is with a Canon camera and the 100-400 zoom. At least if you have looked at all the moon shots on here, you would think that. :lol:

I don't know if there is one "best approch". Some of the things I've seen is that 400mm seems to be about the minimum you need to get a half way decent sized image that doesn't have to be blown way up. At least for screen. The next thing is that you have to understand that even though the moon is in dark sky (during night pictures), that the moon itself is lit by the sun. So it falls under the rules that any subject that is lit by the sun would... more or less. The big mistake a lot of people make is they think they have to do long exposures. What this ends up doing is over exposing the moon. When I did mine, I started at 1/125 at 5.6 and stepped down in fstops. I then went to 1/60th and did a couple at that speed. The one I posted here I did at 1/125th but I'd have to go look at the fstop.

You need a tripod and cable release for really sharp images. I also used mirror lock up. My image is still not as sharp as some of the other's that have been posted, which I believe is because I did AF focus on some and manual focus on others. Neither way seems to have gotten them pin sharp focused. This, I beleive is my fault. I had the camera squeezed into a corner between the bed and wall so it could see the moon out the 2nd floor window of my house. I could not get behind it to do a good eyeball through the view finder. I had to kind of lean around to see through it and I couldn't hold that position very well.

Some of the other people have done daylight moon shots, which look pretty sharp too. I've never done an intentional daytime moon shot, but I think it would be fun to try. I also want to try some of the cresent phases of the moon as well. There are only so many ways you can photograph the moon, and they have probably all been done. But it's still fun to try as it's one of those photographic challenges that is easy to judge how well we did based on all of the other shots done.

Mike