Originally posted this in the August POTD thread, but then realized it's the end of the month and peeps may not see it. Also thought it might deserve its own thread as the info I posted kind of goes beyond a POTD post and might be useful more generally.
I took this tonight with the following gear and exposure settings:
Sony A7R2, 100-400mm zoom @ 400mm, f/8, ISO 100, 1/80 sec. Tripod (obviously).
Some tips for taking shots of the moon:
400mm on full frame is about the minimum you need to capture surface details. Even then, surface details aren't perfectly sharp. @400mm you are going to have to crop *heavily* to fill the frame. Really need a telescope, but I've been impressed with the above gear combo. I've gotten *close* to the same results (but not quite as sharp) with a Nikon D810 and 80-400 zoom. Worse results with a D810 and 200-500. Also worse results with a D500 and either of the above lenses.
Because you are going to have to crop so heavily, it's pretty important to really nail the exposure. Use the lowest ISO (i.e. 100) to minimize noise, maximize dynamic range, maximize sharpness.
Use manual exposure as the majority of the frame is going to be black and any automatic exposure setting is going to horribly overexpose the moon. The above settings are a decent starting point. Using Live View is wonderful as it is easy to see what the sensor is seeing when you click the shutter. I varied the shutter speed in this series and found that 1/100 sec was also acceptable. 1/125 sec required upping the exposure in post which introduced noise that affected the final image. 1/60 sec was overexposed but not blown-out. But none of the pics at 1/60 sec were as sharp. Because of the heavy crop, manipulations you make in post to the image are going to be more obvious compared to standard pics. Try to get it right at the time of capture.
A tripod is mandatory as is some form of remote release or delay to prevent any motion. A remote release is optimal, but for this I used a 5 sec timer delay. Even tiny motion from moving the camera on the tripod at all will introduce blur. If you make an adjustment, wait a few seconds to let things settle down. Then trip the shutter remotely or on a timer. Possibly this image would have been even sharper had I used a remote release rather than the timer release.
Because of the massive cropping, even with a large megapixel body the final file is going to be small. I increased the file size on export from LR, but not sure if what I did is the optimal way to attempt to preserve detail while upscaling an image.
![36780052902_4450dec226_c.jpg]()
Here is the uncropped image for reference:
![36143379853_d12453c095_c.jpg]()
I took this tonight with the following gear and exposure settings:
Sony A7R2, 100-400mm zoom @ 400mm, f/8, ISO 100, 1/80 sec. Tripod (obviously).
Some tips for taking shots of the moon:
400mm on full frame is about the minimum you need to capture surface details. Even then, surface details aren't perfectly sharp. @400mm you are going to have to crop *heavily* to fill the frame. Really need a telescope, but I've been impressed with the above gear combo. I've gotten *close* to the same results (but not quite as sharp) with a Nikon D810 and 80-400 zoom. Worse results with a D810 and 200-500. Also worse results with a D500 and either of the above lenses.
Because you are going to have to crop so heavily, it's pretty important to really nail the exposure. Use the lowest ISO (i.e. 100) to minimize noise, maximize dynamic range, maximize sharpness.
Use manual exposure as the majority of the frame is going to be black and any automatic exposure setting is going to horribly overexpose the moon. The above settings are a decent starting point. Using Live View is wonderful as it is easy to see what the sensor is seeing when you click the shutter. I varied the shutter speed in this series and found that 1/100 sec was also acceptable. 1/125 sec required upping the exposure in post which introduced noise that affected the final image. 1/60 sec was overexposed but not blown-out. But none of the pics at 1/60 sec were as sharp. Because of the heavy crop, manipulations you make in post to the image are going to be more obvious compared to standard pics. Try to get it right at the time of capture.
A tripod is mandatory as is some form of remote release or delay to prevent any motion. A remote release is optimal, but for this I used a 5 sec timer delay. Even tiny motion from moving the camera on the tripod at all will introduce blur. If you make an adjustment, wait a few seconds to let things settle down. Then trip the shutter remotely or on a timer. Possibly this image would have been even sharper had I used a remote release rather than the timer release.
Because of the massive cropping, even with a large megapixel body the final file is going to be small. I increased the file size on export from LR, but not sure if what I did is the optimal way to attempt to preserve detail while upscaling an image.
Here is the uncropped image for reference:
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Monster Moon 1
