Easter on the Coast

I spent a few days down the coast over Easter and took these shots at early sunrise

Taken with the Bigma



Taken with the DA*16-50



Also taken with DA*16-50

That's a cracking shot of the moon Clarky, and I really like the sky in #3 as well

Nice shots.

We only had 'snowrises' over Easter

This week's competition entry by Belinda B. sums up Easter over here for me

Very nice, Clarky, and I think your first one proves my long-held contention that the moon isn't made from green cheese.

It's quite obviously a petrified orange. You can see the segments clearly, and the place where the stalk joined the fruit.

G

I think you are right - NASA has been 'blagging' us all along

My secret is out You have to get up pretty early in the morning to fool you George

Its not the sharpest shot and if i had taken my 055proB tripod instead of my cheap rubbish one, I am sure it would have made all the difference.

I've seen a Bigma shot of the moon over at Pentaxforums.com that was a bit crisper than this one, so I'd say that although this isn't at all bad, you can still get it better.

Having had several attempts at this shot myself, albeit with only 400mm, I'd say that 1/45 is a little on the slow side, especially since the shot looks a little overexposed to me.

In my experience, focus confirmation from the camera is not enough to guarantee that the focusing is as perfect as it can be, and the longer the focal length, the shorter exposure you need to guarantee no movement blur.

Assuming you were using the 2s or 3s mirror up delay, I'd guess that these are more likely to be responsible for the slight lack of sharpness than the tripod.

Thanks Chris. I should have included the exif info
expo. 1/45sec
f13
iso 100
I was using the 2 second delay with a tethered remote.
The moon had that yellow tinge to it, and i probably didn't do a very good job of de-warmifing it and i ended up giving it an over exposed look.

Here is another one with the exception of the Exposure @ 1/60sec and i left the yellow tinge as it was taken.




I could see a definite shake in the view finder following the 2 second delay when the mirror came back down. Not sure if that would have an effect or not
I was focusing directly on the moon using auto and manual focus.
I took about 10 shots at various settings and couldn't get it any better
than what i am showing. :

Well, by the time you get the bang and shake from the mirror coming down, the shutter is long since shut, so no it wouldn't.

I think that second one is quite a bit better. Is it unsharpened?

If so, try shrinking it to about 4/5 of that size (using 'bicubic sharper'), and applying just a tiny bit of USM - 75/1/1 for instance.

I think you'll be pleased - I don't think it gets much better than that without a telescope.

No sharpening was applied.
I will give your recommendations a try. Thanks for that.

If you have Photoshop, try this:-
Open the image
Duplicate the layer
Set the blending mode property of the duplicate layer to Overlay
Add another colour correction layer and manipulate to suit.

Why f13?

Surely f5.6 at 1/250 would have been better. But I'm no astrotog.

G

f6.3 would have been wide open at 500mm and i tried a few wide open with no better results
Heres one wide open @ 6.3, 1/180 iso @ 200




I could have tried a lot more combo,s and George i am no expert on astrology photography either and i was constantly chopping and changing settings

The main thing wrong with the one at F6.3, I think, is that it's overexposed, and not quite in focus.

Here's the one I said you should shrink and sharpen a bit. I also brought the exposure down a stop.

Thanks Chris, Shrinking it down certainly makes a difference

The one at 6.3, 1/180 is over exposed and i have another at 6.3 with the exposure at 1/250 but it looks dark and possibly OOF also.
I found if you focus on the dark shades of the moon or the lighter shades, you end up with a vastly different shot each time.
I guess its a trial and error thing when shooting this type of thing and it all comes with experience