First Moon Shot

Hi everyone. I'm obviously new to POTN but have been trolling around since I got my XTi for Christmas last year. I had to urge to try moon shots this evening so I tried expermenting on a number of different settings with my 70-200L. The following image is a 100% crop of the best shot I was able to make tonight (just cropped and added sig). The image was taken at 200mm. I don't have a TC so this is the best I could do. C&C welcome.

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looks a touch soft, but looks good.

blam wrote in post #2941833
looks a touch soft, but looks good.

It definitely does. I manually focused since AF would lock and it looked perfectly in focus in the viewfinder. I think perhaps an even faster shutter speed and switching to a higher ISO might have solved that. My theory is the softness comes from the ever slight motion blur by the moon's motion.

Looks good to me. Could be a touch sharper but I like it as is.

you have have had better than me

You wouldn't get motion blur from the moons aparent motion at 1/320, it doesn't move that quick!

I took some shots a night or so back using a sigma 70-300 APO and could not by any means get a sharp image, I think the most likely reason was the "seeing" the atmosphere itself is too disturbed to get a good pic. A night later and I got much better images.
Seeing can be judged to a certain extent by the ammount that stars "twinkle" the more they do, the worse the seeing is.
You can also get a fairly good Idea by looking at the moon through bino's or a small scope, the disturbances are easier to see then.

Kapeji wrote in post #2945382
You wouldn't get motion blur from the moons aparent motion at 1/320, it doesn't move that quick!

I took some shots a night or so back using a sigma 70-300 APO and could not by any means get a sharp image, I think the most likely reason was the "seeing" the atmosphere itself is too disturbed to get a good pic. A night later and I got much better images.
Seeing can be judged to a certain extent by the ammount that stars "twinkle" the more they do, the worse the seeing is.
You can also get a fairly good Idea by looking at the moon through bino's or a small scope, the disturbances are easier to see then.

So are you saying that the atmosphere is what's making it soft? If so, that makes sense. I live in NYC so that might explain the haze.

stop down to f9-f16 and try again.

this was my 2nd try at the moon:
http://files.onthelam.​ca/moon0307.jpg

stop down a little more as suggested, use a tripod and remote.

blam wrote in post #2945689
this was my 2nd try at the moon:
http://files.onthelam.​ca/moon0307.jpg

stop down a little more as suggested, use a tripod and remote.

I was already using a tripod and remote. I'll trying stopping down a bit and see what happens. Thanks!

steguis wrote in post #2945526
So are you saying that the atmosphere is what's making it soft? If so, that makes sense. I live in NYC so that might explain the haze.

Hi Steguis, yes, but the atmosphere varies from night to night as to the amount of disturbance that is present, oddly enough, crystal clear and frosy night are often more disturbed than when there is a faint haze present, though this is no hard and fast rule.

Here is the second night shot with a final tweak of unsharp mask to tighten it up, still not pin sharp, but it is from a single frame, stacking several frames might result in a better image, I will have to try it out sometime!.

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I keep on hearing about "stacking". Can someone please explain this to me or point me to a place where I can find out more about it?

Thanks!

stacking is taking multiple exposure and using a software to stack the pictures. It gives more details.

a popular software is registax... give it a try, it's a freeware.

I was thinking about trying a moon shot with HDR (Similar to stacking I guess.)
Just to help with the exposure between the dark side and the light.

Like he said above.
Stop it down between f7-f9
use a tripod. You dont really need to but I like to use mirror lockup.
Your shutter speed will probably be down to about 1/40-1/90 depending.

oh, and get away from the city lights.
The further away from the city the better your shot will be.
Clearer nights the better.

As far as the moon being directly overhead or lower on the horizon to me its the same.
Directly overhead will be less atmosphere to hinder your view. Lower on the horizon will make it look bigger. Balanced trade off IMO.