Which Lens for Milky Way and Moon?

[PrestigePanda]

Hey, guys as you know today and tomorrow there going to be a super moon so i'll be going out of the city to take some pictures and mean while i'm there I wanna take some pictures of the milky way. So here are two lenses 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS or[FONT=Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][/FONT]16-35mm f/2.8 L II i'm going to rent one of them.

 

[snowbear]

For the moon, I'd go as long as possible. And since it's a sun lit object, shoot like you would in daylight - start around 1/125 @ f/11, ISO 200 and see what you get.

Can't help you with the milky way - I've never seen it around here.

 

[Light Guru]

Hey, guys as you know today and tomorrow there going to be a super moon so i'll be going out of the city to take some pictures and mean while i'm there I wanna take some pictures of the milky way. So here are two lenses 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS or[FONT=Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][/FONT]16-35mm f/2.8 L II i'm going to rent one of them.

Honestly if your wanting to photograph the moon AND the Milky Way your going to want both. You won't be able to get nearly close enough on the moon with the 16-35, and the 100-400 may not be wide enough for the Milky Way.

 

[KmH]

It is best to shoot the Milky Way on a night when the Moon is below the horizon, is 'new', or is in an early or late phase in it's cycle.
The full Moon is so bright it washes out a lot of the fainter detail in the Milky Way.
The full 'supermoon' isn't really much bigger this month than it was last month, or will be next month.
http://www.fourmilab.ch/earthview/moon_ap_per.html

How Bright the Moonlight?
When the Moon is full near perigee, you'd expect it to be brighter than a full Moon near apogee and it is: lots brighter; let's figure out how much. Since the Moon shines by reflecting sunlight (not very well—it reflects only about 7% of the light that strikes it, comparable to a lump of coal) the following two factors determine the intensity of moonlight at the Earth:

1. The intensity of sunlight striking the Moon.
2. The distance reflected light travels from the Moon to the Earth.

You need a wide angle lens to shoot the Milky Way, and a long reach telephoto to shoot the Moon.
http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/beyond-basics/147712-lunar-moon-photography-guide-astrostu.html

 

[AXIS]

I have a question Id like to add.
When trying to get the milky way in a shot what general settings do you use?
Would you want a real big aperture to get that light in fast?
Ive managed a few "ok" shots of starts but I really want some of the awesome galaxy in the sky type of shots.

 

[cptkid]

I have a question Id like to add.
When trying to get the milky way in a shot what general settings do you use?
Would you want a real big aperture to get that light in fast?
Ive managed a few "ok" shots of starts but I really want some of the awesome galaxy in the sky type of shots.

Yeah push your ISO to a comfortable level for your camera.

Aperture around f2.8-f4

Basically the wider the focal length, the longer you can shoot for without having star trails.

What lenses do you have?

Also the MOST important thing is having fully dark skies. NO light pollution, you need to be an hour or two away from any cities, basically in the middle of no where to get this kind of light.

 

[Sagitta]

You'd be amazed what can get pulled back into play even in a semi-urban setting during post' but yes - less light is better for the milky way. I'd also shoot raw as you'll almost need post time unless you get really lucky with your shoot.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

[Aloicious]

Hey, guys as you know today and tomorrow there going to be a super moon so i'll be going out of the city to take some pictures and mean while i'm there I wanna take some pictures of the milky way. So here are two lenses 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS or16-35mm f/2.8 L II i'm going to rent one of them.

Honestly if your wanting to photograph the moon AND the Milky Way your going to want both. You won't be able to get nearly close enough on the moon with the 16-35, and the 100-400 may not be wide enough for the Milky Way.

+1 on this...the milky way fills the sky, you...COULD take a ton of pics with the 100-400 @100 and stitch them together, but that would be very hard to do, especially if you're doing telephoto shots of the milky way without any kind of tracking mount to counter the earth's rotation you are very limited to keeping your shutter speed UP to avoid start trails...

this is pretty old, but it was taken with a 50 1.8, and is a series of a bunch of shots stitched together as well as stacked, at the time I didn't have a fast wide angle, which would have been preferable to the normal 50mm:

where as this is a 100% crop of a bad picture of the moon, but at 200mm...

vs not a 100% crop of the moon at 1600mm...

so, for the milky way you'll want wide and fast....for the moon you'll want as LONG as you can get, with speed being less important.