Monday, January 12, 2009

La Luna


Proof that the moon is brighter than you think, I shot this in the daytime and used a tripod and very fast shutter speed to preserve detail.
My longest lens isn't really up to the task (only 300mm-e) so there was enlarging and noise-reduction and extensive levels tweaks involved, but it's not too bad for all that.

I was surprised that manually focusing to infinity blurred the moon rather a lot.
You would think that 250,000+ miles away would qualify as infinity, but what do I know?
Need to check again at night to see if stars are in-focus at that setting--if not, there is something wrong with my lens that I should know about.
If stars aren't 'infinity' I don't want to know what is.

In general usage I have no complaints with this lens--nothing that costs less than a used car will ever be as sharp and precise as what I'm used to, but this is 2009 and I have to run with what I have.
Camera System money is better spent on flash equipment and file path technology.
Spending too much on "better" lenses is what people with more money than brains do, and their mistakes never result in better pictures.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

WOW! Daytime?? That looks super.

Keith Alan K said...

"Daytime??"
A very fast shutter (to combat the surprisingly fast movement of the moon across the sky and the effects of wind on my tripod/camera) renders the sky black.
I probably could have gotten a cleaner picture had I waited for the moon to get higher in the sky a few hours later--would have made no difference in the way things look, but I had other things to do.
This is one of my new projects: Waiting for a night with full moon, no clouds, and lowest possible humidity and wind.