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August 18, 2008 at 3:07pm
by Kari A couple of nights ago, I found myself enjoying how bright it was at night, thanks to a full moon and clear, cloudless sky. Perfect conditions for photographing a full moon aren’t exactly rare, but they aren’t very regular or predictable either, so I decided to take advantage of the weather and try my hand at photographing the moon. I stacked my 1.4x and 2x converters on my 300mm f/2.8 lens, mounted it securely on my tripod and aimed it at the sky, being sure to use IS, mirror lock up, and a self timer (my remote broke a while back and I haven’t replaced it yet) to assure the steadiest frame possible.
I ended up with a pretty straightforward shot of a full moon. While not as detailed as it could be and a little smaller in the frame than ideal (a longer lens is probably better suited for this type of shot or at least a 1.6x crop factor camera with my lens and converter setup), I’m still pretty happy with the resulting image, as it will be good for my stock files.
Techs: Canon 1D Mark II N, Canon 300mm f/2.8L IS USM, Canon 1.4x and 2x Mark II Extenders stacked. To order this print, purchase stock rights, or view other photos I have for sale, please visit my website at www.karipost.com.
3 Comments
#1. josh gahagan 08.18.2008
Cool shot Kari. How did you get to expose it so well. Whenever I try to photograph the moon it gets way overexposed even when I subtract 2 stops of light on my 20D.
#2. Grant Brummett 08.19.2008
Kari,
Nice shot! Looks like it could maybe use a little more contrast.
Did you shoot in Raw? And did you process using Canon’s Digital Photo Professional (DPP)?
If not you might process it over using DPP. I find that I get sharper details and more contrast using DPP then using Adobe Raw.
Oh and congrats on your new Monitor!!!
Grant
#3. Kari 08.19.2008
Thanks guys!
Josh - Any time you are having trouble with your exposure, just preview the image in your histogram. Dial down the exposure until you have no blinking highlights. This was about 3 stops under the reading my camera meter gave me. Keep in mind that the amount of exposure compensation you’ll need to use will vary with the phases of the moon.
Grant - I shot this image in RAW and processed it in Adobe ACR. I greatly prefer the results of ACR over any other Raw Processing software I have tried, as the colors and details are the most true and the number and complexity of its controls enable me to add as much contrast or sharpness as I desire.
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