The Moon!

[480sparky]

I know if I were to take my telescope and install an eyepiece that will make the moon fill the field of view, the moon would disappear from view in a few seconds if I turned of the tracking system.

 

[TCampbell]

Long exposure images of the moon are not necessary. It's normally a very fast exposure. The Earth rotates at roughly 15 arc-seconds per second. But an exposure of the moon following the Looney 11 rule ... says that at f/11 you can shoot the moon with the shutter speed set to the inverse of the ISO setting. In other words even at ISO 100, you can use 1/100th sec at f/11.

In 1/100th sec, with the sky moving at 15 arc-seconds per second (sidereal rate), the sky would appear to move about 1/6th of an arc-second. Lunar tracking rate is closer to 14.5 arc-seconds per second.

The Canon M50 has 3.72µm pixels. With a 300mm focal length lens, that works out to about 2.5 arc-seconds per pixel. This means in the 1/100th sec exposure on the moon, the moon will have moved about 1/17th of a single pixel.

Basically you'll never notice the motion blur.

The moon will fill the sensor of an APS-C camera at a focal length of around 1800mm. But that's a bit tight ... I probably wouldn't go more than 1500mm. Anything over 1000mm usually looks pretty good (the moon dominates the frame).

At 300mm the moon isn't going to dominate the frame, but you can leverage the landscape to your advantage (think about scenes where it'd be nice to have a moon in the image). Planning tools such as "the Photographer's Ephemeris" can help you plan where and when to stand to get the composition you want.

Shooting the Moon on the night "of" the full-moon means the Moon won't be high enough to image until the sky is pretty dark. But if you shoot the "night before" the full-moon then you can capture the moonrise during the "blue hour" which can give a gorgeous look to the photograph with the moon.
Similarly, if you want to catch moonset (near sunrise) then consider doing that shot early in the AM (pre-dawn) one day after the full-moon.

 

[480sparky]

Long exposure images of the moon are not necessary. It's normally a very fast exposure. The Earth rotates at roughly 15 arc-seconds per second. But an exposure of the moon following the Looney 11 rule ... says that at f/11 you can shoot the moon with the shutter speed set to the inverse of the ISO setting. In other words even at ISO 100, you can use 1/100th sec at f/11. ..........

This is literally one stop away from the old Sunny 16 rule. Just remember, folks,...... the moon IS a sunlit scene, just like a sunny day in your back yard.

 

[Ash Telecaster]

Thank you all for the knowlege and the brush up on my math skill!

I'm going to try this tonight. We are supposed to have a blue flower moon tonight. Should prove interesting!

 

[Derrel]

Remember: The camera is a box. ONLY a box!SNIP>.

This used to be much more true than today. Compare a $349 Canon with a $3,800 Nikon.

Today, the higher-level cameras usually have better image quality, higher shutter speeds, bigger buffers, higher firing rate,better focus systems, and advanced features usually lacking in the entry-level models.

 

[Ash Telecaster]

Heres a sample of my first attempt. I took many and messed with the settings. No post processing has been done other than to crop the image.

 

[Original katomi]

Hi Ash, if you convert your moon image to b&w add some contrast it will give it a boost.
I know what you mean about taking a load of shots and changing the settings, I do the same, but that’s the joy of digital you can do that and not incure a lot of expense. Have fun

 

[Ash Telecaster]

Hi Ash, if you convert your moon image to b&w add some contrast it will give it a boost.
I know what you mean about taking a load of shots and changing the settings, I do the same, but that’s the joy of digital you can do that and not incure a lot of expense. Have fun

Thanks, I'll give that a try!

 

[Soocom1]

Remember: The camera is a box. ONLY a box!SNIP>.

This used to be much more true than today. Compare a $349 Canon with a $3,800 Nikon.

Today, the higher-level cameras usually have better image quality, higher shutter speeds, bigger buffers, higher firing rate,better focus systems, and advanced features usually lacking in the entry-level models.

Its still just a box.

 

[Ash Telecaster]

Just wanted to express how grateful I am to everybody for all the help! Thank you!

It was an adventure trying to figure out the menu system. Very powerful feature set but very confusing to navigate, especially in a low light setting. I have to spend more time working with it.

Now the question is, what's the next challenge that will help me down the path of competency!?

 

[Ash Telecaster]

Remember: The camera is a box. ONLY a box!SNIP>.

This used to be much more true than today. Compare a $349 Canon with a $3,800 Nikon.

Today, the higher-level cameras usually have better image quality, higher shutter speeds, bigger buffers, higher firing rate,better focus systems, and advanced features usually lacking in the entry-level models.

Its still just a box.

So is the Tardis! <Wink>

 

[Ash Telecaster]

I did some editing on it using Canons Digital Photo Professional 4.

Here is the original...

 

[Derrel]

Looks like a pretty solid result

 

[Ash Telecaster]

Looks like a pretty solid result

Yes! Thanks to you guys!

 

[Derrel]

Did you have an application that will apply "unsharp masking" to the image?