I Want to shoot the moon

[BennerPhoto]

I would like to be able to take photos of the craters on the moon
what kind a lens do i need for my Nikon thanx

 

[ksmattfish]

I'd look into a telescope and a T-mount to Nikon adapter. You can probably get a lot more magnification out of a telescope, and it will cost substantially less than what an ultra long focal length lens would.

 

[tirediron]

I've managed decent moon shots on an APS-C sensor with a 300mm (450 equiv) lens, but basically, the longer, the better.

 

[Joves]

As KS said. I have shot it with my 80-400VR but you wont get craters magnified.

 

[iflynething]

Sigma 50-500 witha 2x converter and a hand crank to track the moon through the sky

~Michael~

 

[wildpix]

as its basically a sunny day up there, why would you need one?

martin
wildpix.net

 

[Murray Pastko]

Depends on how large you want the image. Here is a cropped shot with my 70-300vr.

 

[Do'Urden's Eyes]

If you really are into it (and not just want to take one shot of the moon and then just let it be) I'd go for the telescope option as well. ideally something 400-500 would be acceptable but those are with in the mid $XXXXs generally so..

Also canon offers a 400mm F/5.6 for around 1500 CND i dont know if Nikon offers anything similar...

 

[Garbz]

I think Astrostu is asleep so I'll link you here:

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

This is Astrostu's very detailed and excellent guide on luna photography. If you have any questions after reading the PDF in that post, then read the PDF again. There's nothing he doesn't cover

 

[BennerPhoto]

thanks for all the reply's i will look in to them i really dont wanna get a telescope ( i dont have the room in my semi truck) but that might be a good option anyway
Murray that is the photo i was looking to shoot thank you for posting that
so u shot that with a 300?

 

[astrostu]

I think Astrostu is asleep so I'll link you here:

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

This is Astrostu's very detailed and excellent guide on luna photography. If you have any questions after reading the PDF in that post, then read the PDF again. There's nothing he doesn't cover

Thanks for the plug, Garbz. You'll get your kick-back next month ...

I actually read this post a day ago (when there were like 4 replies) and I didn't think my guide would cover what he wanted to do. I inferred he wants something like these two:

The top is the crater Bullialdus within the mare Nubium and Humorum. The bottom is the famous crater Tycho in the lunar highlands. I wish they were sharper, but such is the seeing here in Boulder (sucky).

However, now it seems like he wants photos like this:

If that's the case, then yeah, my guide will help with the technical aspects, but it doesn't recommend a focal length. What you (the original poster) really needs to do is specify what you want to accomplish. What's the smallest feature you want to be able to resolve (see) in your photos? If you want to be able to discern Tycho crater in your photos (it's around 85 km in diameter, I think), then that would mean that Tycho's at least 4 px across. With the moon having a diameter around 1738.1 km (equatorial radius), then the moon itself needs to be 4*1740/85=82 px across. That's fairly small.

In the above full-moon image, Tycho (the crater near the bottom with the ginormous rays) is about 20 px across (I just counted). To get that, you want a moon that's 20*1740/85=410 px across. That's about 5.7" at 72 ppi, which is smaller than that 8" moon in the above photo. But let's work with it.

Now let's say your camera is 8 Mpx. That's usually a vertical resolution of about 2300 px. So you want the moon to be about 18% (let's just round to 20%) of that field. That means you need a vertical field of view of 0.5°/0.2 = 2.5° (the moon is about 0.5° in diameter). That will then require a lens that is about 550 mm in focal length. (Calculated by using field of view = 360/pi * atan( (mm size of sensor) / (2 * (focal length of lens)) ).)

Maybe now you're getting the idea of why I didn't reply right away ... I'm sure I'm giving you much more information than what you wanted, but that's basically because you are not asking a very clear question. "I would like to be able to take photos of the craters on the moon" can mean very different things.

 

[BennerPhoto]

alrighty the above post blew me out of the water. I am really new to this game i just bought my camera so i have no clue what you said in your post astrostu!

im ganna try and make this simple all i wanna do is be able to take photos exactly like
the one above and i would like to know how to do that the easiest way possible with the best lens possible

i hope i dont come off as rude not trying im new and i wanna learn thanx

 

[astrostu]

alrighty the above post blew me out of the water. I am really new to this game i just bought my camera so i have no clue what you said in your post astrostu!

im ganna try and make this simple all i wanna do is be able to take photos exactly like
the one above and i would like to know how to do that the easiest way possible with the best lens possible

i hope i dont come off as rude not trying im new and i wanna learn thanx

No, not rude, just naïve in terms of not being specific enough in communicating what exactly you want to photograph.

What I was explaining in my above post was effectively the following statement: "Your question is basically, 'What lens do I need to get a field of view that displays features on the moon.'" I then took that and illustrated an example of the math that you would go through to figure out what field of view you need in order to see/display/resolve certain features, using the prominent Tycho crater as an example.

Your question really is a field-of-view question. With the moon, the smallest field of view - the longest lens - is the best. Any lens can photograph the moon. But in a 50 mm lens, it will be small and you will not be able to see/display/resolve many details, such as the main craters, from the surrounding regions.

To get a photo like the last one I showed, or the one that Murray showed, a 300 mm lens should be considered as a minimum. If your Nikon has a crop factor associated with it (you didn't say what model you have), then a true 300 mm lens will really give you a 450 mm effective focal length (assuming the standard Nikon crop of 1.5x).

To get photos like the first two I showed, you're getting into effectively needing a telescope. Those were taken effectively through a ~4000 mm "lens."

Also, if you haven't photographed the moon before, I do recommend reading my lunar photo guide that Garbz linked to, as it will explain pretty much everything you need to know in figuring out the camera settings.

Does that make more sense?

 

[BennerPhoto]

Thank you astrostu for clearing that up i have a Nikon D80 and what im getting is that ill need at least a 300mm lens and a telescope.

thank you


as soon as i get the time im going to read ur lunar guide


again thank you for clearing it up

Benner

 

[ksmattfish]

( i dont have the room in my semi truck)

You need to check out the telescopes available today. There are models that really don't take up much room (short tubes, small bases), and are designed to make operation super simple. You can get a compact telescope for $600 that will get you much, much closer than most $600+ lenses.

A long time ago I attached my mom's bird watching scope (under $200) to a camera, and was able to fill the frame better than with any camera lens I had. You need a scope that can take a T-mount adapter.