Full Moon with my new 400 +1.4X

[britt777]

Just wanted to post my shot of full moon with new 400.
All comments welcome and thanks for looking...:)

[rfreschner]

Wow, great shot Britt! What exposure did you use?

[CyberPet]

Did you use hight ISO? It looks a bit grainy. I'd try 1/200 sec @ f/8 and 100 ISO.

[RikWriter]

Looks great to me! Nice pic!

[britt777]

ISO 200 f/11 1/50 sec

[mebailey]

Great sharpness and detail Brittany! There is a little visible noise on the non-cratered parts of the moon. Did you use a high iso(no you did not) or did you try USM in PS? Maybe a noise reduction program could help?

[dandan]

is it heavily cropped?

[Curtis N]

The graininess Petra refers to is probably JPEG artifacts.
I think you got the exposure about right, but I'm surprised it isn't brighter at those settings. They calculate to two stops faster than Petra's suggestion.

[CyberPet]

It doesn't look like jpeg artifacts, unless Britt used 30% compression in the post process. I think you could use 100 ISO and still get a decent exposure speed. Use a tripod if they would be too long. I usually expose the moon as for daylight, anything between 1/60 to 1/250 s or so, depending on the moon and of course the lens (in my case I used 1/200 @ f/8 and got in my opinion a good exposure with my Canon 80-200/2.8 - just wish I had Britt's lens or longer!).

[britt777]

Same exact pictures, no ps adjustments. Just crop

[britt777]

In the first shot I played a little in ps. Thought it looked more realistic. The moon is not as smooth as it is pictured with just regular shot. Thanks for all the suggestions and comments.
Enjoy

[CyberPet]

Britt, yeah that second one looks much better. Lucky gal!

[mebailey]

Same exact pictures, no ps adjustments. Just crop
Yea Brittany, the noise is gone to my eye. Much better!!

[Juan Zas]

Yeah, the Unsharp Mask at PP introduce noise if you increase or exagerate it, specially the treshold value !!

Cheers

[Andy001z]

Nice big moon, the full moon seen from the west of england was cool on Sat night so bright, however I didnt take any shots :( as the days climbing and surfing had left me ready for bed at nine. When I have taken shots in the past on my 300m lense its never this big, I did use a 400m once but still not as big, I guess in Texas u have a much bigger moon than us.

Nice shot
Andyh

[rfreschner]

I did use a 400m once but still not as big

Looks like Britt used the 1.4 extender also, which might explain it.

[farrukh]

petra's parameters are perfect.
so try them

[Jussuff]

Amazing shot! Thanks for sharing.

J.

[malla1962]

Looks supeb to me.:D:D

[rklepper]

Great shot. Thanks so much for sharing.

[richardho11]

Looks absoultely stunning! Nice Work!!

[tbfoto]

Very cool! I have about 2 dozen shots of the moon saved but have yet to get one that good. Very well done!

Tom

[islandtime]

Nice shot! Hope you don't mind if I thread jack you and post one of mine from Saturday night. Taken with a lowly EF 75-300III.

[kwsanders]

I took some tips from this thread, pulled out my monopod, stuck it into one of the mount holes on the back of the bed and took these shots. The first one is the untouched JPEG from the camera. The second one is an exported JPEG from the RAW file out of PhotoShop Elements 3.0. I think I screwed something up with my PSE3 setup, because all of my RAW files show up in icon view with adjusted settings intead of as shot on the camera.

As I mentioned, I took the tips from the thread. I used ISO 100 f/11 1/50 second. Well, I just realized that I did not follow the full tip. I just noticed that the suggestion from brit777 was ISO 200. Oh well, this is not too bad for my first shot of the full moon with my 350D. You have to learn at some point to get better. :)

I used my EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 II USM for this shot.

untouched JPEG
http://potn.kwsanders.com/moon_untouched.jpg

exported JPEG from RAW
http://potn.kwsanders.com/moon_raw.jpg

[kwsanders]

I did not realize that my white balance was off on this until I was reviewing the rest of the thread. I set WB to auto and changed my parameters to ISO 100 f/8 1/200 second. This is the result.

http://potn.kwsanders.com/moon.jpg

[ron chappel]

Looks like i got here late-as usual:rolleyes: :D

I was going to say the same as most others- that the first example was oversharpened.

Oddly the original pic looks abit softer than it should be.Even though a 1.4TC is being used it could be a sharper.
I don't say this to pick on brittany but more as encouragement that even better results can be had:)
Once the basic exposure problems are worked out (nearly everyone get's those wrong first time out;) I sure did-i notice brit didn't:) ) there are subtle things that can be done to get the sharpest image possible

1. Use manual focus because AF really isn't accurate enough.
Yes manual focus is not easy either ,but if lots of shots are taken,refocusing each few shots ,then a few of them will be perfect
2. Use a solid tripod but still take a bunch of shots .No tripod is perfect so some will be better than others.
3.Experiment with sharpening/contrast/Jpeg compression settings in photoshop.These are the settings that have the biggest effect for images shown on the web

This pic is from a cheapo manual focus preset lens.It's a good example of the above.I think i took about 20 pics and picked the best,then experimented 'till it looked right


http://members.dodo.net.au/~l8r_ron/images/kimunor-500mmf8-%5B80k%5D.jpg

[CyberPet]

See, told you those aussies have the moon upside down... I think it's cool!!!! Ron, your lens and TC needs calibration, send it to Sweden ASAP!!! (I think I can fix that upside-down moon if you give me a bit of time). :D

[islandtime]

Ron Chappel, thanks for hitting me right on the head with the manual focus tip. I didn't even think to fire off a few photos using manual focus. I was too busy worrying about getting the f stop right. Now that I have a good idea of what aperature settings and shutter speeds work best I can get down to making sure the focus is dead on.

Hmmm when's that next full moon......

[CyberPet]

When's the next lunar eclips? Shouldn't that be in october or november, like next full moon or the one next after that?? I SOOO NEED RON'S LENS! :D

[ron chappel]

LOL .Petra,i should remind you that the average image from that lens isn't very good.This one is only great because of all the effort put in (not to mention all the dud images from the same subject that were thrown away! ;))

Oh -one point i forgot to mention! -
Taking moon pics at a certain phase helps it look slightly sharper.The pic above is abit better than anything else i've ever got because the angle of the sunlight hitting it really highlights the craters around the top and left side...which makes it look a little sharper than it really is.
It's the exact same effect you get when taking pics of pets (for example) -all the edges in the fur/hair make it look sharp no matter what