Astromological piccy

Hi all,

had a clear evening, so I thought I'd have a go at the moon..




*ist DL | 100-300 FA @ 300 | 1/350 sec @ f8 | ISO 200 | (cropped a fair bit)

I did try with a 500mm Mirror lens and, firstly 2 then just one 2xTC.. and it was too windy. In the end I used the 100-300, and the AF worked, and I got as fast a speed as I would during the day, so mucking about with the tripod for 30 minutes previously was a bit of a waste of time.

Due to the cropping and resizing for posting, it's a bit jaggy at the edges, so I'll probably upsize the original first, and post a new copy later, if it works out better.

I did want to go and get a few shots of it through the trees, but wandering around here early evening with all the upstairs lights on and with a 9" lens on the camera would've got me B&B courtesy of Her Majesty's Constabulary. If it's clear tomorrow night, when I've got more time, I'll go out into the woods and have a go.

Cheers

Liam

Hi Liam,

I've had some success using a beanbag for support, just resting on the window sill (with window open, obviously ). The shot below was with my Tamron 300mm f/2.8 + 2x convertor. Cropped down, and reduced 50%. Shutter speed was 1/45s, so guessing the aperture was f/16 (this was before I got the KA mount for the lens).




The not-quite-fullness of the moon allows some more detail to be shown in the craters I think. It's surprising how often you have to recompose when shooting the moon - it's moves a lot quicker than you realise.

Hope you have a productive time in the woods tomorrow (did type 'good time' but thought I'd better change it ).

Dan

Hi Dan,

Nice shot, far better focussed than mine.

No chance tonight, it's been raining on and off for most of the afternoon, and it's still drizzling now, so I'll have to leave it for another night. Oh well, I'll go and get a beer instead..

Here's one from last night that went wrong. I was getting good hand hold speeds with the moon, then pointed at a star.. not quite as much light from it as the moon.. eight seconds later.. this. Not exactly a steady hand..




Cheers

Liam

UFO!!!!

Nope - but then if you had spent six months waiting for the right conditions and were attracted by the apparent conflict between the forces of light and darkness, it could be a competition winner
Graham

I love it Liam, reminds me of the stange sea creatures you see pictures of, and whether intentional or not, I think you've got the composition spot on. Definitely a competition winner, it's just finding the right competition!

Dan

Hi,

well the moon's out again tonight, so I'll be out there for the 'through the trees' tree shot in a little while. No wind, so that'll be better. I may take some more of the slurred star shots as well. Just to get a few reserves for the 'competition'.. In a funny way they do seem to work, and they're definitely going to be unique.

Cheers

Liam

HeHeHe!!! take a dozen more Liam, add a lot of different colour noise then submit them to the Tate Modern as new wave (pun) photography

Here's a shot of this evenings Moon between the clouds.



SMC-A 400 f5.6 with Sigma 2x APO
The recorded exif is 1/125s f/16.0 iso200, with the converter I make it 1/125s f/22.0 iso200 but I stand to be corrected.

Fine image Brian... just applied a little bit of Photoshop processing:



http://www.pbase.com/mattmatic/image/71253768

Matt

Cheers for that Matt, the posted image is straight from Silkypix DS3, I just used CS2 to crop it and add the border.

One thing I'm having real trouble with is, I wear varifocal specs for most thing except when I'm doing lots of reading and I find it difficult to make sure I'm in focus when using longer manual lenses, don't want to start trailing my reading or VDU specs all over the place.

Maybe time to add a dioptre lense to the viewfinder (any body got +4 or +4.5 the D only goes to +3, the K10D only to +1.5) but I'm reluctant to do this as I have ordered the 1.2 loupe with my K10D (hope Chris can get it), don't know if I can fit both, will wait and see when the K10D comes I think.

I tried something as well
Taken with my Tamron 28-200 lens no teleconverter. the sky wasn't 100% clear. Not much quality left....





(going to buy the DA50-200 next week....)

Same shot as the previous post with a little bit more PP effort this time on the Tiff/PSD file, I think it's a tad more pleasing than the original.

...and a tad better than Matt's version - nicer, more natural colour.

And the sharpest effort so far, I reckon.

Dan

Thanks Dan.

To be very fair to Matt, he worked with a low res jpg where I had the use of the full PEF file, I'm sure Matt could get it even better with the PEF file.

Great result Brian

I'd converted the image into pure B&W, FWIW, which is why the colour looked "wrong" for the moon. Must try harder next time

Matt