Generic Moon Picture, but I am not happy

[Dubaiian]

Hello Everyone,

Last night I noticed that the moon was particularly bright (for our part of the world) so I set myself up and captured this picture. If you look at the left side of the moon its well defined, but the right side seems kind of washed out. Is there anything that I can do that sharpens more of the orb?

It was taken on a 7d with a 100-400 and 2 xTC III, ISO 100 f16 @ 1/30 sec.

I was at home and had to set the tripod pretty high so maybe that introduced some camera shake? I did use the 10 sec delay to try and avoid that.

C&C welcome.

 

[amolitor]

You could use HDR!

 

[moz]

hi am just new to this site bt ve found it quite use ful, hw ever hw is photograhy business in dubai?

 

[pgriz]

The sharpness and definition of the moon craters depends on the shadows. Along the terminator (the line between light and dark) the shadows are quite prominent, and serve to define the topography. On the right side, the light is essentially flat, with no shadows - and there is not much you can do about that without doing special processing. That is why when National Geographic put together their Moon atlas a few decades ago, they did a composite with each "slice" of moon showing shadows along the terminator.

Your image of the moon is very good - not much to improve on unless you go to a higher-powered telephoto or even telescope.

However, the moon as an object, is more interesting when it is included with something else in the foreground. That is because few of us (unless we are amateur astronomers) stare at the moon for its own sake, we usually see it in context of an earthly scene (moon over a shimmering lagoon, moon rising over a mountain, etc.). So audiences generally find moon shots more accessible if they are including some earthly foreground for context and contrast.

Here are two links to threads that I started discussing the moon near the horizon...
http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/...-full-moons-more-interestin-near-horizon.html
http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/landscape-cityscape/274711-new-moon-setting.html

 

[LizardKing]

This one's pretty good! I took a similar one yesterday's night.

 

[Dubaiian]

Thanks Pgriz and all for the comments. I must have been half asleep last evening as everything you say makes sense. If the light is pointing directly at it, there will be no shadows and definition doh!!

Might try the HDR as well. Living in a desert with moonrises behind sand dunes could be quite. Interesting,