Help with shots of the moon

[Ballistics]

I tried my hand at shooting the moon for the first time tonight with a 55-200mm.
It's hard to tell if the moon was in focus just because of the lack of focal length.

This is the best I could do.

It says that I was @ 190mm which is annoying to see lol.

Any tips to make the best out of the short focal length?

 

[adversus]

On my laptop it looks pretty good for being hand-held. I don't think focal length is going to matter much. I mean, the moon is 235,961 miles away, an extra 100mm of zoom isn't going to make that much of a difference.

Most moon shots I believe are presented as crops, so focus less on focal length, and more on getting a crisp image you can crop.

 

[Ballistics]

I'd like to get this pic lol.

 

[Josh66]

I'd like to get this pic lol.

Without significant cropping, you'd be looking for something around 1000mm.

I have a 1200mm telescope that I use sometimes (if you have a telescope, a t-ring is only $10 or so...) - that's just about perfect on a crop body.

 

[Ballistics]

I'd like to get this pic lol.

Without significant cropping, you'd be looking for something around 1000mm.

I have a 1200mm telescope that I use sometimes (if you have a telescope, a t-ring is only $10 or so...) - that's just about perfect on a crop body.

Oh wow. That pic was taken with a 600mm. My pic at top I had to zoom in, but if I zoom in any more it's just blurry.

 

[Netskimmer]

I have been trying to get really good shots of the moon for a while now and I am imporving but I am not satisfied yet. Here are a few things that I find helpful:

Use a tripod, a shutter release cable, and shoot in mirror up mode (mup) to reduce shake and vibration.
If you have live view, switch to that and zoom in as far as you can so you can see as much detail as you can on the moon and use that to focus. Once your focus is good, swtich back to viewfinder and take the shots.

This has produced reasonable results for me with a fairly low end 55-300mm lens:

I have a cheap 500mm T-mount lens on its way, hopefully I will see some improvment with it.

 

[Ballistics]

Tonight the only thing different was I used a remote instead of hitting the shutter by hand.
Still @ 200mm. I didn't use mirror up though. Maybe I should have. 100% crop.

 

[Netskimmer]

I didn't use mirror up though. Maybe I should have.

Not sure how much it actually helps but every little bit counts.

 

[enzodm]

Tonight the only thing different was I used a remote instead of hitting the shutter by hand.
Still @ 200mm. I didn't use mirror up though. Maybe I should have. 100% crop.

Why not 250mm (EDIT: I wrongly read you have a 55-250, a more careful reading tells me you are already at max). Focal length matters too. I'm not sure if in the 55-250mm resolution drops at 250mm, but most likely not so much, so use at maximum what you have.
Use a tripod or similar, and if you focus in Live view, you will have mirror up, which might help with shorter shutter speeds. However, with such focal length your results are good.

I did this with a cheap&old 400/6.3 duplicated with a cheap&old tc2x:



This one is with the same lens but not duplicated:

 

[Tomasko]

I'd like to get this pic lol.

Don't post pictures which are not yours... If you want to show us something like this, you can always provide a link to it

 

[WesternGuy]

Have a look at this. There might be some ideas you can use.

wrotniak.net: Photographing the Moon

Cheers,

WesternGuy

 

[KmH]

TPF has a search feature and the question of how to shoot the moon comes up often.

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/beyond-basics/147712-lunar-moon-photography-guide-astrostu.html

Astonomical observatories are put up on mountain tops for a couple of reasons, there is less atmosphere to look through, and generally less light polution.

Which mountain top gets used depends on the results of testing they do to determine how steady the atmosphere usually is above each potential mountain top.

So the goal is to get up in the mountains, away from any other light sources, and shoot when the atmosphere is at it's steadiest, which is in the winter.

This time of year many observatories in the nothern hemisphere shut down for yearly maintanence because the atmosphere is moving around to much.

 

[AgentDrex]

Here's a hand-held shot of the moon with my 70-205mm Vivitar, shot at around the 180mm range, ISO1600 to allow faster shutter speed as I was shooting at f/11 which seems to be the sharpest on this particular lens:

Lower left-hand dot could possibly be the glare bouncing off of a satellite or what would be really cool is if it was the ISS...

 

[Ballistics]

TPF has a search feature

No kidding.

 

[Ballistics]

Tonight the only thing different was I used a remote instead of hitting the shutter by hand.
Still @ 200mm. I didn't use mirror up though. Maybe I should have. 100% crop.

Why not 250mm (EDIT: I wrongly read you have a 55-250, a more careful reading tells me you are already at max). Focal length matters too. I'm not sure if in the 55-250mm resolution drops at 250mm, but most likely not so much, so use at maximum what you have.
Use a tripod or similar, and if you focus in Live view, you will have mirror up, which might help with shorter shutter speeds. However, with such focal length your results are good.

I did this with a cheap&old 400/6.3 duplicated with a cheap&old tc2x:



This one is with the same lens but not duplicated:

The first one is awesome.