My favourite shot is the first although I would tone down the highlights top right.

You're in the race? Impressed.

Thanks for the comp Lilly, nice to see the entry count up again and a quality field.

Congratulations Jim, excellent landscape. Well done Blaze and Tozza, both images that I had previously admired on flickr.

It sounds very simple so I would do it on Excel, or even the old fashioned way in books.

I'm not from here, I emigrated.

That is the drawback of that lens. I have only noticed it once when I was at f18 and even then it didn't show on all photos at f18. I mostly use the lens wider so had never noticed. The lens produces wonderful warm colours and a smooth look, I think it has real character and the 1:2 I find very useful for flowers and fungi. It's also a cracking portrait lens. So my advice would be to use it knowing its limitations.

I got rumbled. Thanks for taking it in the right spirit. Moon photos are a personal and addictive thing. It's really just a technical exercise and the challenge is to get the best out of you own kit rather than compare anybodys pics to anybody elses. Moon shots really do benefit from a lot of sharpening and or tonal contrast. I have a telescope which collects a lot of light so I try to stick to ISO100 to give me maximum pp flexibility.

The second photo is really just past the point where the Moon looks at its best - which I find is from 3/4 days into the cycle to day or so past first quarter (and the mirrored equivalent for the last quarter to waning crescent). That is probably why areas look less sharp than others. Edge to edge sharpness is also an issue for a single shot - I can just about get enough not to bother with stitched shots. The amount of water in the atmosphere makes a big difference too. A really cold night will hold little and gives the clearest views. I normally find the best time to shoot is at the end pf the blue hour.

I would definitely go for a telescope over a mirror lens. You don't have to spend very much and you get something useful to play with.

I have a reflector telescope. I can't achieve prime focus so I have an eyepiece with a thread which takes a coupling ring to attach to a lens. I use the K35mm f3.5, but I've pretty much reached the limit of quality. So I'll order a different adaptor to try different lenses. I wonder what the Q's crop factor would produce too, could be good.

I missed the total lunar eclipse last year - too cloudy. I'm still gutted about it as I could have got some great shots.

I don't do other astro as my telescope can't track for long exposures.

Those are very good results from the 55-300. I have found the most enjoyable thing is trial and error rather than to follow someone else's methods. And I find the exercise has benefits for other subjects too.

That's a very interesting point. I wonder how it performs for macro and telephoto. It would be interesting to see some wildlife shots to see how it performs. That would definitely sway me over the Panasonic.

Macro is your passion so go for it. A 1:1 is definitely worthwhile (hugely so over a 1:2). Autofocus I think is not important. 100mm or thereabouts seems the right focal length. I will be selling my DFA100 very shortly in France so if you are interested let me know.

I quite like the dark blue of the sky, sharpened, adjusted WB, boosted clarity, higher black levels, adjusted contrast and then added tonal contrast, maybe a little OTT: