Can I Play With Madness?

Nearly a full moon, perhaps this weekend it will be. In the meantime, the clear night and bright moon helps with getting the settings dialed in. I'm pretty sure I've got it set now with the reflex lens. f/8, 1/800 sec, ISO100, Tripod (of course) on mirror-up/time delay mode (to minimize blur)

I didn't expect to see it again, it was supposed to be cloudy tonight but fortune smiles upon me again.

Werewolves of London

So I'm fighting a cold this week so I've been laying low, but the moon has been so beautiful lately, that's it's hard not to go shoot it. Nearly full and the skies are clear with no wind ('tad chilly however) so perfect weather to go moon hunting.

Not quite as sharp as the others, still on my 500mm reflex lens, ISO100. I discovered that really dark scenes like this lose a fair amount of detail as the ISo goes up, even slightly, so keeping it as low as it will go but since the moon is nearly full, the extra light it reflects offsets the fast shutter speed, allowing me to capture the image with minimal motion blur. I'm also on some lovely cold medication so if the sentences don't make total sense, blame NyQuil.

Lunacy

I have a wonderful Tamron SP 500mm Catadioptric (AKA reflex, or mirror) lens that I use for the NASA rocket launches. It's also pretty good for shooting the moon (for large definitions of "pretty good") but getting a solid moon shot is somewhat of a trick.

See a reflex lens trades length for portability and weight saving. A normal 500mm lens, like Nikon's latest 500mm f/4 lens, weighs in at 136.9 ounces. That's 8.5 pounds, or equal to carrying a one gallon jug of water your entire photoshoot session. This is in addition to carrying around all your other camera gear...

Then you have the length of the lens, it's 15.4 inches. Quite a beast and not that portable. In contrast, the reflex lens weights a mere 595 grams (1.3 pounds) which is a huge savings in weight, so you can carry it around all day without breaking off your arms. In addition, it's only 3.6 inches long, (with the Nikon mount) so another savings. Unfortunately, the light weight contributes to camera shake since it's not enough weight to help dampen motion, and given the 500mm focal length, you need a fast shutter speed to avoid blurred shots. And because the light path is folded in on itself (the reason it's so short) motion blur is really evident unless you use a tripod. 

But the trade-offs become a non-issue when shooting the moon, since a tripod is going to be mandatory anyway. But there are other disadvantages, and one is a killer:

It's an absolute nightmare to focus properly. Because of the folded light path and trick construction, the lens is hypersensitive to minute adjustments in focus, so it's almost a guarantee your shot will be out of focus unless you are super careful, have lots of practice, or have a camera that has focus confirmation. Actually, you need all three of those to get a good shot out of a reflex lens. Reflex lenses are more than capable of producing great shots, but because they are so finicky, very few people *get* the shot, and as such, reflex lenses have a reputation of being poor substitutes for the real thing.

So, to the moon shot at hand. Contrary to what I had expected, the moon moved at a good pace through my viewfinder, and the initial shots exhibited motion blur. Not much mind you, but enough to dull the image. So, back to research, and try again. I upped the ISO to 800 and changed the shutter speed to 1/1000 of a second. The aperture remained at f/8, since it's fixed anyway (a feature of the folded light path of a reflex lens, you get one aperture only) and took a few shots. 

Unfortunately, what I reduced in motion blur, I gained in noise, which reduced the overall sharpness, so the final result, even after some post processing work, was an image that wasn't to my satisfaction. So, back *again* to try new settings. I reduced the ISO to 200, making noise non-existant, and reduced the shutter speed to 1/200 of a second, which introduced motion blur, but I was able to compensate a little in post, and more importantly, the details remained. 

So to make a long story short, I feel I can get better out of this lens, I just need to find the right combination of settings. Meanwhile, enjoy the shot. More to come as long as the weather co-operates, that is.

Bark At The Moon

Taking a break from my manual focus lens reviews, to shoot with a manual focus lens in a real-world setting.

In this case, the Nikkor 300mm f/4.5 manual focus lens, on my Nikon D2x. It's as difficult to get the moon in focus as it is to make a moon shot look interesting.

This is a 100% crop, to show detail. 1/30sec, f/16, ISO 200, tripod of course.

As the moon comes into fullness, I''ll see if I can't get better shots of it.