MedicineMan4040 wrote in post #17807844
^awesome Moon and rig. I've got a 100-400ii and a TCiii so maybe someday I can follow suit.
Thank you - definitely worth doing. I wish I had a heavier duty tripod, but if I balance the rig just right, it is very stable.
Puckman wrote in post #17808141So how well does the A7rII AF with the 100-400LII?
I have yet to try AF, but I would imagine very well given it's one of the newest Canon lenses. In general, newer Canon lenses tend to work better with A7RII's AF. I just used 16-35 f/4L w/ A7RII for a Bar Mitzvah shoot and it performed admirably (although with wideangle lenses, focus is not as critical as those with longer focal lengths).
davidfarina wrote in post #17807971Wow! Your tele converter, the lens and your camera body seem to be perfectly working together. Ive never seen such a sharp picture out of such a combo! Fantastic shot
MedicineMan4040 wrote in post #17808424^ I cannot (so far) get good results with the 100-400ii even with the latest MB FW
But that's ok, it does very very well (to my eye) with the 70-400gii or the Tam 150/600.
In fact the Tam really shines on either my A7Rii or the a77ii.....it is a lens that loves light
(and lots of it) though.
Thank you both. Here are some precautions I took when I shot (despite the fact it was shortly after I rolled out of bed, still in my pyjamas and before my morning coffee ).
1. Pick a day with good atmospheric condition to shoot - clear morning or evening after a rainy day usually results in good, clean air, or a remote location without light or air pollution if you can travel.
2. Use remote trigger - infrared or the kind that you stick into camera’s port.
3. What's not shown in the setup is the RRS lens foot that replaced the OEM foot. http://www.reallyrightstuff.com …Canon-100-400mm-IS-II-USM
The former is far sturdier than Canon's detachable foot, and the foot is long enough so that even if the balance shifts, balance point would still fall within the length of the foot. When mounting on tripod, be sure to mount to the head at the point of balance - that helps reduce vibration.
4. I should be using sturdier tripod but Gitzo Series I Traveler is still usable - I did not extend the lower two sections of the tripod - that helps maintain rigidity
5. Use 500/lens focal length formula to determine maximum permissible shutter speed before recorded images begin to show star trails. With 800mm, that’s 0.6 seconds, but I would keep it much shorter than that. Set to lowest possible ISO. For aperture on this particular rig, I shot f/13 since I thought it might do better than wide open at f/11.
6. Be patient with focusing - if you're using EVF, make sure the diopter adjustment is just right for your eye. I prefer to use the flip-out LCD, especially with the camera lower to the ground because of item 4 above. Don’t rely on focus peaking, rely on your eyes. Due to my aging eyes, I wore reading glasses while looking at LCD for focusing; it also helps to set LCD view magnification to maximum. Half or crescent moon is easier to focus than full moon because of light and shadows cast around craters.
7. Set IS to off. I tried both and shots with IS off came out sharper.
8. Framing - at 800mm, you can really begin to observe movement of the earth by way of moon moving across the frame. Instead of placing the moon in the middle of the frame, locate it towards the edge and let the moon travel across towards the other other edge as you take shots. That way, you’ll spend less time recomposing and more time shooting; while the moon is traveling towards center of the frame, you can try several different settings so that you’ll know what works best when the moon reaches desired location in your composition. Once it has passed, you can recompose.
9. Post-processing - in Lightroom, use the sliders in basic pane than curves since changes are more subtle and effective - keep an eye on histogram as you do this. Clarity and dehaze sliders work nicely to bring out the details and crispness. If using low ISO, no noise reduction ought to be necessary, provided you did not underexpose the moon.
Some of the points apply not just to moon shot but in other situations as well. Hope this helps.
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