Thursday night's Moon

Had a play shot on Thursday night just for 10 minutes or so, brilliant sky.
BTW I don't see many Astro shots in here.

K1 mkII, DA* 300, f11, 180th sec, Manual on a tripod. ISO 200.

Nice, I did one Thursday night as well but as it was done with my Sony a9 and 200-600mm I won't post the actual shot but here is a LINK

Snap, I just had a peep at yours but of course my Pentax one is better ! LOL

I sharpened mine up a bit in Rawtherapee by trial and error, clicking on anything going i.e. Sharpen only edges, micro-contrast, and another ? memory problem

I have done plenty with my Pentax gear over the years but as I hadn't tried one since I got the Sony I thought I would give it a go ... mine was hand held and processed with DXO Photolab 5

I wanted to try one with the K-1 and the Sigma 500mm f/4.5 and 1.4x but tbh I couldn't be bothered getting the tripod out

The details is awesome!

Those clear skies you get there are an added bonus - it's all traffic fumes and light pollution in the Midlands. That's a super picture!

Thank you for the comments chaps.
Re. Mike and getting out your tripod, I have a Peak Design travel one (which I'm very pleased with apart from the high price) - there is a quick way of releasing the legs, release all clips at once -2 seconds, shake out the legs - 2 seconds, close clips - 2 secs? and the ball head type has a quick dial lock - simples
David, it's rare to get clear skies down here it's usually rain and cloud, the south west gets more than the rest of England.
Gareth, I read somewhere to not photograph a Full 'flat' moon as no shadow detail would be evident.

BTW Glad the camera has a flip screen/lcd as the moon was quite high in the sky.

PS. Used Focus Peaking on manual focus having zoomed in digitally first, 2 second timer.
PPS Reading my typing I sound as if I'm getting good at this, but I did attach the 1.4 TC halfway through, which is of course totally incompatable - as I realised. Doh.

That's certainly a good capture.

I've never had much luck in the past as my shots always seemed over exposed.
Reading this thread it seems I needed to stop down much more and under expose ?
I therefore had a 'play' tonight with an FA 80-320 on my K50.
I put the K50 to Manual and MF and used 1/125 @ f/11 and ISO200 and the lens at infinity.
Here is the result:-



It's not the sharpest of images but despite the comments made about not photographing a full moon this does appear to have some detail ?

Peter

Peter,

Treat my reply below as from a beginner, and all experts out there can correct at will

I used the Looney Eleven and it worked perfect for the shot, and checking the exif, no exposure compensation.

Also on Liveview the shutter was set to Electronic not manual, don't want any shutter shake.(?)
I did take a few with manually bracketing so was lucky with this one, and recall highlights blowing during my rushing (as usual) but that could have been when mistakenly using the TC with the K1 - not ASPC !

I'm no expert, and a complete beginner on Moon shots, there is a lot of good info on the tinternet; -
It's better when the moon is straight up rather than low on an angle, otherwise you are cutting through a lot more earthley polluted atmoshere to the moon.

Your picture is of a very near full moon I believe, better just before to get some shadow in the craters, and I wonder if you had some atmospheric 'pollution' and/or camera/lens shake?

The K1 with focus peaking is a brilliant tool, oh I probably didn't need to? - at 1/180th sec, but enabled Astrotracer.(?)

It looks a good exposure, (on my laptop) and in PP could increase contrast a bit, just needs a sharper finish?

Hope this helps but I'm sure other more experienced Astro/Lunar peeps on here can advise more accurately.

Regards

This is one from me, shot 3 years ago 1/200 sec - F5.6 - 100 ISO - handheld - K1 - 150 to 450 @ 450 plus a decent crop.

How do you mean incompatible?

The 1.4x is a crop teleconverter but works fine on the K-1 ... yes it introduces some vignetting but as you have to crop hard (even at 420mm with your 300mm and the 1.4x) to get a decent sized shot I would have thought the final image wouldn't show it. Besides it's a black sky anyway.

Mike,

I remember reading somewhere it wasn't and during freezing to death I saw lots of blown highlight red warnings I just assumed it to be that, my mistake but glad to hear it is still usable.

Now that is impressive. Great image, excellent detail. And handheld too! Holy carp!

You've got me going now Chris !
I have a Ki11 and a 150-450 so I'll have to have a try with that kit.

My shot from last night was primarily an experiment in exposure (which I felt was OK.
The conditions were far from perfect :- Urban environment, low angle, moist (misty) atmosphere, hand held (but leaning back against the house wall), K50 and old lens.
But apart from that I was happy that the exposure looked OK !

Thanks for all the tips.

Peter

No problem Peter, it was a reasonable clear sky at the end of May and the moon was high up in the sky, I used the edge of the back door frame for support.

Stick the camera into continuous shooting mode, shoot at least 3 and frame 2 should be sharper