Fogged Lens or Not, Here are some photos for C&C

[astroskeptic]

... the moon were to be that big that far away from the horizon. Slam! Goodbye world. How big do you think it should be?

A few tips about realistic moon compositions:

1. Size

The moon subtends an angle of about 0.5 degrees and will look unrealistic when composited in such a way that the implied angular size is way off. Since .5 deg is so small to the eye, the moon can only be big in comparison to something else when that something is far from the viewer and subtends an angle of about .5 deg. In this moon photo, the problem is the leaves; they are too small in comparison to the moon. For this to happen in reality, you'd have to be very far from the leaves but in this photo the angle of regard is upward from below the tree, a vantage point from which it is impossible to get a large distance from the leaves.

Consider a tree of height 20 feet. At what distance X will this tree subtend an angle of .5 degrees? The equation we need is:

tan( 0.5 degrees) = (20/X); X = 20 / tan(.5) = 2292 feet

or about 1/2 mile. At this distance, the only way you could see the moon and the tree in the same field of view would be if the moon were on the horizon so a horizon composite would be realistic but some upward-directed view, would be unrealistic.

2. Orientation

By orientation, I mean the angle of the moon's crescent. Remember that the moon's illumination comes from the sun. The implication of this is that the crescent tells us which direction in the sky the sun lies. For example, a waxing crescent, just after sunset, must be oriented such that the "bow" of the moon is pointing down toward the horizon since this is the direction from which the sun's illumination is coming.

In the moon photo above, the orientation implies that the sun is in the sky upward and to the right of the moon. Given that this is a night shot, the result is unrealism. Rotate the moon clockwise some so that the implication is that the sun is in the downward direction (where it would be if it were below the horizon)

 

[AgentDrex]

Aperture would definitely be at least one of the culprits, as the blades are stuck wide open...

 

[molested_cow]

Hmmm....

Here's a photo taken with the 50mm at F1.2

Here's a photo taken with the same lens but at F5.6

The one with aperture pushed to the extreme tends to have more distortion towards the non-focused area of the photo. At F5.6~F11, the images are a lot sharper.

Not saying that I know what's wrong with the lens, but this can be a possibility since it happened to me as well until I learnt about optimum aperture range for sharpness.