First Moon Shot 4 Me

Never really attempted this before, but last night had a 400/2.8 & 2x on a Canon xsi (1280 if my math works)so I decided to take a few shots of the moon. Normally I would be using my MKiii but I remembered that the xsi would give me that 1.6 crop. The most interesting thing about the shoot last night was the speed at which the earth rotates and the moon orbits around us. When using live view at 10x mag to focus, the moon would be out of frame in 30 seconds. Anyways, hopefully this is the first of many, but I know I won't be getting into this too much with tracking systems and such. yadda yadda yadda, here's the shot.

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great shot, well done.

I'm thinking I'm a bit OOF as i look through some other moon images in here.
The craters on the edge (left side) seem tack sharp while the mid surface has little detail.
Meh, I'll try to nail it tonight.

Rick Denham wrote in post #10254972
I'm thinking I'm a bit OOF as i look through some other moon images in here.
The craters on the edge (left side) seem tack sharp while the mid surface has little detail.
Meh, I'll try to nail it tonight.

It's not OOF, think about the distance from you to the moon.
It's hard to get detail on the moon, best shots are not full moon as there are more shadows on let's say half moon etc.

Focus isn't the problem, RIck - it's over-exposed. That's why you can't see much detail. Knock the exposure down a stop or two.

Don

Looking at your Exif Data.

Try a slower f/stop, and much lower ISO. I would have stopped down rather than up on the compensation.

On the bright full moon f/9 or smaller, and ISO 100.
Use a tripod, Mirror lock up, and a remote shutter switch or timer.

on edit:
Look at this one which was shot at 1/83sec, f/11, ISO 100

https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=877484

tkerr wrote in post #10255429
Looking at your Exif Data.

Try a slower f/stop, and much lower ISO. I would have stopped down rather than up on the compensation.

On the bright full moon f/9 or smaller, and ISO 100.
Use a tripod, Mirror lock up, and a remote shutter switch or timer.

on edit:
Look at this one which was shot at 1/83sec, f/11, ISO 100

https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=877484

The photographer in me knows all that, trust me. I think my mistake was using the xsi, I am so unfamiliar with it. Tonight I will try again but this time with my MKiii, along the lines of 1/100sec, f/11, ISO 100.

Cheers guys

Oh yeah, and the damn camera was also set to JPEG, which I absolutely hate working with.

Rick Denham wrote in post #10255516
Oh yeah, and the damn camera was also set to JPEG, which I absolutely hate working with.

That makes a HUGE difference!

Nice work, Rick. It beats my early attempts by a country mile.

Rick Denham wrote in post #10254936
Never really attempted this before, but last night had a 400/2.8 & 2x on a Canon xsi (1280 if my math works)so I decided to take a few shots of the moon.

The FL is 800 mm. Changing the size of the sensor does not have any effect on the lens focal length. Think about it -- if you had a FF camera with the same pixel density as your XSi, the moon would look the same size and the surrounding black sky doesn't contribute anything to the picture -- it is just something that needs to be cropped out.

If you stack both of your extenders, you will have a FL of 1120 mm. The 400/2.8 is one nice lens -- makes me envious -- except when I would need to carry it out in the field.

Rick Denham wrote in post #10254936
Normally I would be using my MKiii but I remembered that the xsi would give me that 1.6 crop. The most interesting thing about the shoot last night was the speed at which the earth rotates and the moon orbits around us. When using live view at 10x mag to focus, the moon would be out of frame in 30 seconds.

The greater pixel density of the XSi would be an advantage, but that has to be weighed against the difference in image quality. I know what you mean about the moon walking out of the field of view with LV set to 10X before you have a chance to get focus set satisfactorily.

Rick Denham wrote in post #10254936
PS, on a side note, I do have a 1.4x as well, but could not get the 1.4x & 2x to stack together. Yes I know the 2 has to go to the lens and the 1.4 to he camera, but they still wouldn't stack. Anyone know why?

You have it backwards on stacking the two extenders. They will fit together only one way -- the 2X next to the camera and the 1.4X next to the lens. When mounted on the camera, the second teleconverter will not be recognized so the display on the camera will be off by one stop.