In preparation for photographing the lunar eclipse this week, I tried some moon shots with my new Rebel XT last night. I was out at a dark lake, well away from the city. Any ideas what happened here? Details are in the notes for the shot.
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I would guess flare. internal reflections from such a bright light source. I'm also guessing that if you reduce that shutter speed down, that'll go away too.
I am not sure about the second image. Could be that you moved the camera while taking the picture? I use wireless remote, and I make sure there is nothing moving my camera, such as footsteps or wind before I start taking the picture.
I've used that 75-300 lens for moon shots before and seen the same thing. I think the light bounces around a lot inside that lens. But if you bring your exposure under control it won't be so noticeable.
You can't trust your camera to pick the settings, the large expanse of sky will fool it unless you have some crazy-long lense & can fill the frame with moon.
I took this shot with my point & shoot, hand held, while blindfolded and in a moving car, shut in the trunk. But I'm just that damn good! Maybe someday you'll do the same. I'm thinking about offering a very, very expensive course in the above technique. But I'm a very, very busy man, and in high demand with the ladies.
you can just use the sunny 16 rule - the moon is just a sunlit object after all. Probably open up a stop from a mid grey exposure to keep it more on the lighter side of grey.
ETA: which wouldn't be a million miles away from 'I shot this at ISO 100, F/5.6, 1/180s'
Yeah what gordon said. I pretty much bracketed out a bunch of shots @ 304mm but you use a fast shutter speed not slow. I stopped the aperture down as far as it goes, manual infinity or centered auto focus and then shot from 2000 down to 250. SHould work if your like me and cant figure that sunny 16 rule in your head. Not good with math lol.
so, f16, ISO 100, shutter speed 1/100 (or 1/125ish)
or... f8, ISO 100, shutter speed 1/200s (1/250s ish)
or f5.6 ISO 100, shutter speed 1/400s
half one, double the other it ain't so hard once you learn the aperture stops.
I'd probably try to do moon shots with an aperture of around f8 - there's no depth of field required in the shot at all so you might as well shoot around about where your lens is the sharpest.
More seriously, I can't figure out why the moon isn't sharpest when focusing at infinity.
As others pointed out, you can't always rely on infinity being where the focus ring stops turning. Many lenses allow a little "beyond infinity" focusing because the point of infinity changes if, for instance, you're shooting IR.
More seriously, I can't figure out why the moon isn't sharpest when focusing at infinity.
As others pointed out, you can't always rely on infinity being where the focus ring stops turning. Many lenses allow a little "beyond infinity" focusing because the point of infinity changes if, for instance, you're shooting IR.
Also because where 'infinity' is varies with temperature of the lens and manufacturing tolerances, so even in normal light wavelengths, the infinity point can move around.
