Shooting the moon with 55-300 + 1.7x

DanielT74 · 01-11-2009, 10:18 PM

And finding that 1.7x teleconverter doesn't really give any more detail. Maybe a touch more but also more noise..

Was I naive to expect it to work well with this lens??

I'm finding that it works pretty well with the tamron 90mm macro..

Hoping that some of the "oldies" can set me straight here.. (first one is without 1.7x and the second one with )

Cheers!!

daniel

PS I did a quick edit in iPhoto (sorry - don't have Photoshop or Lightroom on this laptop) to get the most out of images. The one with teleconverter was very soft, hence more noise when I tried to sharpen a little.

BBear · 01-11-2009, 10:34 PM

not sure about your original question, but damn! those are good moon shots!

could you please share the exposition values?

I've tried many moon shots and nothing like your 1st shot!

Good work!

sychen · 01-11-2009, 10:37 PM

I tried the same combo... was better off without it.
It came out similar to yours.

Not that the combo doesn't work.. just not worth the IQ loss.

Cheers
Shang

Sean Nelson · 01-11-2009, 10:40 PM

Originally Posted by DanielT74

And finding that 1.7x teleconverter doesn't really give any more detail. Maybe a touch more but also more noise..

This may be completely unrelated to what you're getting at, and forgive me if it's blatantly obvious - but for the best and most dramatic moon shots with lots of craters you need to shoot when the moon isn't full. Crescent moons or half-moons (ie, 1st or last quarter) give the best results.

*nulla* · 01-11-2009, 10:46 PM

Originally Posted by Sean Nelson

This may be completely unrelated to what you're getting at, and forgive me if it's blatantly obvious - but for the best and most dramatic moon shots with lots of craters you need to shoot when the moon isn't full. Crescent moons or half-moons (ie, 1st or last quarter) give the best results.

Thanks for that tip... still not to old to learn something new every 28 days

DanielT74 · 01-12-2009, 12:50 AM

Originally Posted by BBear

not sure about your original question, but damn! those are good moon shots!

could you please share the exposition values?

I've tried many moon shots and nothing like your 1st shot!

Good work!

Thanks for the kind word, BBear!

They were f9.5 1/350 with ISO100 on K10 (no teleconverter) and f22 1/20 (with teleconverter) both on a tripod with a timer.

Originally Posted by Sean Nelson

This may be completely unrelated to what you're getting at, and forgive me if it's blatantly obvious - but for the best and most dramatic moon shots with lots of craters you need to shoot when the moon isn't full. Crescent moons or half-moons (ie, 1st or last quarter) give the best results.

Yes, I had the same experience but wanted to get the full moon. But why exactly is this so (forgive me if I am asking the obvious) too much illumination??

georgweb · 01-12-2009, 02:19 AM

Daniel,
thanks for posting the pics. The moon is always good to compare lenses, although there are differences from full to half moon, like being mentioned, the position on the sky and the clarity of the atmosphere. Don't go to the astro people's sites, their moon shots are of course humbling :-)

Re. your question, yes, I think that Tamron lens is just not really appropriate for Tcon use (unlike your mentioned 90mm lens). Looks like the theoretical advantages from the TC are being outweighed by the losses here. This happened to me a lot of times with so-so lenses. I have had advantages from a Tcon with my best long lenses (fixed focal length) and best Tcon. Seems like a fast aperture helps (and then stopped down).

BTW what Tcon are you using?

Good intro: http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/g...moonshots.html

Georg (the other)

piotro · 01-12-2009, 02:33 AM

Here's one of mine moon shoots with 55-300 + TC (click on it for a bigger photo).
The Moon by piotro in piotro's Gallery

And other taken with 55-300 + TC (click on photo for bigger version):
The Moon by piotro in piotro's Gallery

Mike.P® · 01-12-2009, 05:32 AM

Taken a few nights ago.
Pentax K10D, Pentax F* 300mm f4.5, Sigma 2x DG EX Teleconverter, Tamron 1.4x MC4 Teleconverter. Manual focus, Hand held.

JackProton · 01-12-2009, 07:53 AM

Originally Posted by BBear

not sure about your original question, but damn! those are good moon shots!

could you please share the exposition values?

I've tried many moon shots and nothing like your 1st shot!

If you're familar with the SUNNY 16 rule of thumb (shutter speed 1/ISO sec at f/16 in bright sunlight), try "MOON 11". The Moon is actually very bright being directly illuminated by the Sun. A sturdy tripod, mirror lock and a remote shutter release or timer release can also help a lot.

Miserere · 01-12-2009, 11:12 AM

Originally Posted by DanielT74

They were f9.5 1/350 with ISO100 on K10 (no teleconverter) and f22 1/20 (with teleconverter) both on a tripod with a timer.

Daniel, I would think 1/20 is a bit too slow for the Moon at a focal length of 510mm, and there will be blurring caused by the Moon moving in the sky. Another thing to bear in mind is air turbulence, which will affect the IQ in a random patterns; it's always advisable to take 3-5 photos at the same settings and then choose the sharpest one (which will be the one taken during a brief moment of calm air).

Yes, I had the same experience but wanted to get the full moon. But why exactly is this so (forgive me if I am asking the obvious) too much illumination??[/QUOTE]

Shadows.

*Igilligan* · 01-12-2009, 11:52 AM

I get similar results with the zooms and my 1.4x tamron. But like you found with the tamron 90mm... the tc's do work better with the primes.

The atmospheric conditions and phase of the moon really make a huge difference. The night after I got the shot below,
I tried again and could not even get close to that detail, because of conditions in the upper atmosphere

Here is a moonshot with an old 400mm vivitar F5.6 and the tamron 1.4 tc

this is probably the most detail I got on a moonshot.. I gave up trying not long after this...

PS full moons are the toughest to get detail out of... the most detail tends to be near the shadows,
and there are not many shadows on the full moon

*ivoire* · 01-12-2009, 12:28 PM

I found these sites to be of great assistance in doing lunar shots. There is a lot of info:

http://www.adidap.com/2006/12/06/moo...re-calculator/

How to Photograph a Lunar Eclipse

Ben_Edict · 01-12-2009, 12:31 PM

Originally Posted by Igilligan

I get similar results with the zooms and my 1.4x tamron. But like you found with the tamron 90mm... the tc's do work better with the primes.

The atmospheric conditions and phase of the moon really make a huge difference. The night after I got the shot below,
I tried again and could not even get close to that detail, because of conditions in the upper atmosphere

Here is a moonshot with an old 400mm vivitar F5.6 and the tamron 1.4 tc

this is probably the most detail I got on a moonshot.. I gave up trying not long after this...

Your shots are quite good for such a short focal length. Lots of detail and very good contrast. I never got such a good result with a humble photo lens!

Ben

Ben_Edict · 01-12-2009, 12:40 PM

Originally Posted by DanielT74

And finding that 1.7x teleconverter doesn't really give any more detail. Maybe a touch more but also more noise..

Was I naive to expect it to work well with this lens??

I'm finding that it works pretty well with the tamron 90mm macro..

Hoping that some of the "oldies" can set me straight here.. (first one is without 1.7x and the second one with )

Cheers!!

daniel

PS I did a quick edit in iPhoto (sorry - don't have Photoshop or Lightroom on this laptop) to get the most out of images. The one with teleconverter was very soft, hence more noise when I tried to sharpen a little.

Daniel, such a slow zoom lens is the wrong companion for a tc. Tele converters work best with prime lenses and with longer focal lengthes. Zooms need a dedicated tc (like the Sigma Apo-tcs for the Sigma Apo 70-200/2.8) and some might work by pure luck with a particulyr zoom lens.

Also, the zoom you used, though being a good lens on its own, is simply way too slow for a 1.7x tc. To achieve max. quality, you must step down two f-stops and arrive at a aperture of app. 19(!) for best sharpness and contrast. This on the other hand gives you a very slow shutter speed, which leads to blurr (motion blurr of the moon, atmospheric blurr - called "seeing" and ofcourse blurr by camera shake due to wind etc.)

Add to that the moon phase. Shooting the Full Moon is possible. Your goal would be to work out the ray craters (Tycho being most prominent), because these bright rays can be seen best at Full Moon.

For anything else, particuzlarily good high res shots of the craters, you should go for a different phase of the Moon, may be first or second half. The reason is simple. At Full Moon the sun rays fall perpendicularily to your line of sight onto the Moon's surface. This gives a frontal and flat light.

At any other phase the sun rays fall onto the Moon's surface at varying oblique angles. And quite the same as shots here on Earth: side light gives a better modulation of structures, because it produces shadows, which frontal light does not. Shadows make not only all the details visible, they increase contrast, which is key for sharpness. So Moon shots outside the Full Moon days are sharper, have better contrast and show more detail. But you won't see the rays of Tycho as good as durong Full Moon...

Ben