1st try at the moon

[JLB768]

Go easy on me, I'm still learning the in's and out's of my camera. This is the first time trying to shoot the moon. I'm not too photo savvy yet, and don't know all the proper terms, so I'll do my best to tell what I used, and settings. I'm using a Canon 40D, with a Canon EF 70-300 1:4-5.6 IS USM Lens. The two pictures below were @ ISO 200...F8...1/800. I cropped them both 100% (think so anyway :)), sharpened one of them, and played with the contrast & brightness a bit. Since I don't have a remote yet, I used mirror lockup, and set the timer. I can take some ribbing, and would appreciate hearing any opinions. I love to take photo's, and hope to really get into this more.

http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/2230/img1744y.jpg

http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/6272/img1745a.jpg

[slitherjef]

Are you sure this is your first try? :p It looks very good!

[JLB768]

Are you sure this is your first try? :p It looks very good!

Thank you. Yeah, it's my 1st try, I searched around for tips and tricks, before heading out back.

[unnerv]

Great job for a 1st try.

[joe9047]

Nice job with these. I also just tried some moon shots for the first time these last couple of nights. Can't seem to nail the focus and a full moon is almost here:(

[Bernoulli]

You're doing about as well as can be done! I've got the same lens and I started a thread somewhere further down the list called "moon at 300 mm" or something like that, using this lens.

There are lots of beginning mistakes you're NOT making, so these are really good results. The only thing I can see, and it's pretty trivial, is you can turn your ISO down even more to 100 but you probably wouldn't see much difference.

This is a great first effort; show us some more!

[AxxisPhoto]

Nice images. Great job for a first try! http://smileys.on-my-web.com/repository/Respect/respect-040.GIF

[JLB768]

Thanks guys, I appreciate the kind words. I'm gonna try a few more, but as I said, I'm new to this, and will have to read up more. It's easy to find tips for a full, or near full moon, but I'd like to try photographing a Crescent moon. I just don't think it'll be as easy to find tips for that. My wife heads out to work around 2am, so I'll probably be out there again tonight, to play around a little more. I'm really enjoying this camera, but still have a ton to learn. I take what I believe are some nice shots, then see something by someone else, that makes me think...wow, I got a long way to go.

[JLB768]

Tonight's full moon. Can't believe the difference in color, between the first pics a few nights ago, and tonight. Same settings.

http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/3170/img1755.jpg

http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/1227/img1747.jpg

[timbar21]

Great pics for your first try. Keep at it.

[joshkho]

better than my first try. =)