Early Gibbous Moonset
| 3 imagesAn early gibbous moon haloed against a midnight blue sky shortly after sunset.
(I’ve included a couple of 100% crops so you can see the full detail. I intend to tack on the 1.4x teleconverter, and once it arrives the 2x, as well as the 2x + 1.4x, to get even more detail! With the whole three piece setup, it’ll be 1680mm!)
Nature Photography 
Hey Jon! I am bit confused. Was this photograph created around midnight? Or a bit after sunset? I love the blue effect on the sky.
It was created about five minutes after sunset. In actuality, the sky was a bit paler than you see here, and a bit brighter…my processing to extract detail in the moon’s surface changed its color to the midnight blue. The moon was also obscured by some light cloud cover that was rather orange in color, which is where the halo comes from. The reason the photo looks this way is because of the fact that the moon is rather bright, and to make it’s tones look “normal”, one has to darken the rest of the scene by quite a bit.
I think, contrary to popular opinion, you can’t actually get a nice “midnight blue” sky at midnight. By that time, the sky is pretty well and truly a deep black, spotted with stars and the milky way. I think a true midnight blue occurs maybe an hour after sunset, during “blue hour” or astronomical twilight. Even at that time, however, if you try to photograph the moon and make that deep blue sky visible, you would probably need a camera with 20 stops of DR. The best time to get a deep blue sky behind the moon is shortly after sunset.
That’s going to be hard to focus, how will you do it? I had a hard time with my 1.4 + 400mm (no auto). The moon moves so fast through the frame already at that distance and maybe my inexpensive tripod is to blame, but using the live view to manually focus and zooming in with it was pretty wobbly.
I usually use the contrast detect focus mode of Live View to do it. If available, I also set the lens IS mode to 1, which will stabilize with a half-press of the shutter button or a press of the AF button. The stabilization helps a LOT. The CDAF works quite well, if it has a stable image. If it misses, then I try to fine-tune manually.
The moon does move across the frame pretty quick. I managed to get the CDAF working with a 500mm + 2x + 1.4x, which was 1400mm, when I rented the 500mm f/4 L II lens last year. You can see them in my Astrophotography gallery. I remember having to manually fine tune then…so I suspect I may need to manually focus entirely at 1680mm.
The real trick, since the moon does move so fast, is to place it in the opposite corner of its path of travel, and focus there. That way, but the time you are done focusing, the moon is just about center of the frame, where it will be sharpest. Take a few shots, reposition the moon in the frame, and take a few more.
Remember to push exposure FAR to the right…you can “overexpose” the moon by a LOT before it actually clips highlights, and just push the exposure down in post for much less noise. I will actually have to write up a KC article about photographing the moon, and share my techniques in detail. Once you get the hang of it, it actually isn’t to terribly difficult.
Thanks for the tips, Jon. I’ll have to see if my camera has that focus mode. My best moon shot to date is in this post: http://steveboer.wordpress.com/2013/01/13/golden-globe-night/
Looks like a good shot. Lots of detail. The only thing you could probably have done better would have been to increase the exposure. You could have probably gotten at least two, if not three stops *slower* shutter speed, which would have let in two to three times more light. The image looks like its just a blown white disc, but you can recover those highlights, and the detail is far less noisy.
I’ll put together some tutorials on how to best photograph the moon in my Knowledge Center. There were times when the only thing I had time to photograph was the moon, and I’ve tried everything. I have a good bit of knowledge to share on the subject. It’ll probably take a few articles to cover it all, but hopefully you’ll find it valuable. 🙂
Cannot imaging what that setup will weigh LOL! Wonderful shot!
Oh, I guess when its all put together, it’ll probably weigh 12 pounds or so. 😀 Hefty beast, but it will all be on a tripod. I couldn’t use it for anything else, either…as stacking teleconverters like that makes the maximum aperture f/11…I couldn’t autofocus or anything. You could call it a “poor mans telescope”…with the exception that it ain’t really a poor mans lens! 😛 Ironically, the telescope I’ve been drooling over for years is only $4300… 😮