Another full moon

This Easter we had only one clear night, and I just had to try capturing the full moon rising. This is a 100% crop, with a wee bit of sharpening:

[IMG]http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee91/terje-l/full_moon.jpg[/IMG]

Using the K20D with my Sigma 70-300 1:4-5.6 APO DG at 300 mm, the shot was handheld at 1/350, f/11, ISO 200.

Apologies for bringing yet another shot of an old theme

Exposure looks OK, but what does the photo look like without the sharpening? There seems to be quite a bit of noise which the sharpening has brought out.

That looks really excellent for a 300mm consumer zoom, much better than anything I've managed with the Tamron 70-300, and not far off shots I've got with a 500mm Tamron mirror. The sharpening noise is about what I'd expect. I suppose it might be worth trying ISO100 next time, looks like you had the light for it.

Well, Father Ted, here is the moon straight out of the camera, just cropped to 100%:

[IMG]http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee91/terje-l/moon_1.jpg[/IMG]

I agree there seems to be some noise in my first entry, but anyway, I was quite pleased with the result.

Will try ISO 100 next time I get the chance, Tim.

They're pleasant looking moon shots Terry, and you must have the pleasure of crystal clear skies to get shots like this!

There's a lot of noise even in the 'straight from camera' image. Do you have NR turned on? Did you shoot RAW or JPG?

The area outside the moon's circumference should be totally black, unless a star is in shot. It's speckled with white dots in your shot, and that's nothing to do with the lens, unless it is truly filthy, which I doubt.

Peter, my camera is set to
- Slow Shutter Speed NR = Auto
- High-ISO Noise Reduction = 3 (Weak)
Do you recommend other settings?

By the way, I cannot see any white speckles outside the moon's circumference, either in the Picasa image or in the original shot. So I am a little confused as to what you mean. The lens is reasonably clean.

Your settings would seem OK. To see what I mean about the white spots, save the image from here, open it in Picasa and apply a lot of fill light. It'll show them up very well.

Do the same with the original and if they are not there it must be something applied by the upload process.

Any news on this?

Hi Peter,

Not having access to Picasa, I loaded the image(s) in PSE 8. Using Levels, if I drag the right lever almost all the way to the left, I see specles of noise. But at levels 0 (left) and 30 (right) the background is all black. (Hope this makes any sense to you).

I will make a test image and upload in the Pentax Digital SLR section tonight. Maybe there is a fault in the sensor.