I shot the moon, and missed :(

[kirbinster]

One of the dogs woke me around 3am so I got up to take pictures of the Lunar eclipse, and was just looking at them now. I had hoped I would have gotten at least one good shot, but no such luck. I think I may need to go out and buy a stronger tripod. I had my D300 with 70-200 f/2.8 AF-S VR lens mounted to a Nikon 2x TC and I think it was too much weight – every shot had motion blur. I even used the mirror up mode and 0.4 second delayed shutter release. Maybe I was not thinking straight, but these are the worst pictures I have taken in like forever. Could it have been my 85 pound dog (the one in my Avatar but he has gotten bigger) that was walking around in circles on the wood deck the tripod was sitting on, or was the slight breeze just too much for my tripod with this heavy load?




(Yes I know only one shot for critique - this is for comparison only)

Here is the best shot, but still motion blur - just looking for critique on the motion problem.

[DestinDave]

I answered about the motion blur in my other thread but, now I see this, it really is motion blur!!
My culprit guess would be the wood deck - every board is "springy" and any walking around would probably transfer directly to the tripod legs.. Your first shot looks like a definite "bounce"
The second is very good - I don't see the blur you're talking about on it at all...

[ravncat]

I can't find the exif for this - probably because this computer doesn't have an application to extract it, and I couldn't find info written on your flickr. I'd like to know your focal length ( never mind, 400mm, I see it now) and shutter speed, but I don't , so I guessed.

If it is too long - you could be seeing the motion of the moon itself - in which case all you can do is a faster shutter speed - or a tracking mount... The moon subtends an angle of about half a degree. Depending on your lattitude, the moon moves through the sky at roughly 15.5 degrees per hour - (half a degree faster than the stars). If you were shooting at say 300mm on the d300 you'd have an angle of view of about 6 degrees. (Less on your 200-500). This means, that it would move from one side of the frame to the other in a little more than 20 minutes (left to right). With d300 pixel density, - it would move about 3 pixels, in one second. (and cover roughly 360 pixels itself). That's enough to mess with fine details, at 1 second - and more than that, it gets worse. If you were shooting with 500mm , you'd be seeing motion blur with faster shutterspeeds. (600mm effective, 1.5x2x200 - means an angle of 4 degrees, instead of six - moon is still half a degree - so it would move about 2 pixels, in one second)

Or you bumped your tripod / camera (lens tripod mount if used) - or the vibrations from the mirror were a problem. Or it's a combination of all those things. Usually, when shooting the moon, we have really fast exposures for "daylight" - But during the eclipse, I can imagine needing significantly more exposure than usual. You can test your tripod's stability pretty easily - just tap the end of the lens the next time you have it setup - if there is any motion whatsoever, you need better support, I can't tell about the deck motion though - it could be a small factor too. You can clearly see two sources of motion in the first comparison image, maybe that was a much longer exposure - with the moon moving across the frame, and the wind / deck / tripod combination getting a bump for the smaller motion. or a big bump and a shorter exposure

(as a side-note. I've had considerable trouble trying to get sharp images of the moon with a substandard tripod, a 2x teleconverter on a 300mm on my ep-1 giving me a 1200 efl - I get better results cropping without the 2x tc with that combination )

[kirbinster]

Originally Posted by ravncat

I can't find the exif for this - probably because this computer doesn't have an application to extract it, and I couldn't find info written on your flickr. I'd like to know your focal length ( never mind, 400mm, I see it now) and shutter speed, but I don't , so I guessed.

If it is too long - you could be seeing the motion of the moon itself - in which case all you can do is a faster shutter speed - or a tracking mount... The moon subtends an angle of about half a degree. Depending on your lattitude, the moon moves through the sky at roughly 15.5 degrees per hour - (half a degree faster than the stars). If you were shooting at say 300mm on the d300 you'd have an angle of view of about 6 degrees. (Less on your 200-500). This means, that it would move from one side of the frame to the other in a little more than 20 minutes (left to right). With d300 pixel density, - it would move about 3 pixels, in one second. (and cover roughly 360 pixels itself). That's enough to mess with fine details, at 1 second - and more than that, it gets worse. If you were shooting with 500mm , you'd be seeing motion blur with faster shutterspeeds. (600mm effective, 1.5x2x200 - means an angle of 4 degrees, instead of six - moon is still half a degree - so it would move about 2 pixels, in one second)

Or you bumped your tripod / camera (lens tripod mount if used) - or the vibrations from the mirror were a problem. Or it's a combination of all those things. Usually, when shooting the moon, we have really fast exposures for "daylight" - But during the eclipse, I can imagine needing significantly more exposure than usual. You can test your tripod's stability pretty easily - just tap the end of the lens the next time you have it setup - if there is any motion whatsoever, you need better support, I can't tell about the deck motion though - it could be a small factor too. You can clearly see two sources of motion in the first comparison image, maybe that was a much longer exposure - with the moon moving across the frame, and the wind / deck / tripod combination getting a bump for the smaller motion. or a big bump and a shorter exposure

(as a side-note. I've had considerable trouble trying to get sharp images of the moon with a substandard tripod, a 2x teleconverter on a 300mm on my ep-1 giving me a 1200 efl - I get better results cropping without the 2x tc with that combination )

Not sure why you could not see the exif data on flickr, here it is:

Camera Nikon D300
Exposure 5
Aperture f/8.0
Focal Length 400 mm
ISO Speed 200
Exposure Bias +1/3 EV

I was using my Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 AFS VR with a Nikon 2.0 TC on my Tripod (details in my sig).

I have taken good picture of the moon before, not sure the issue here.

[ravncat]

is Exposure 5 the shutter speed? - that would cause a good 10 pixels of movement, which is probably enough for that edge movement.

[prabbit237]

Originally Posted by DestinDave

The second is very good - I don't see the blur you're talking about on it at all...

Look at the dark spot right about halfway between 4o'clock and 5o'clock positions. You can see some edge-blurring there. Not super-bad (and I had to go to flickr to get the slightly larger version to see it at all.)

Opening the aperture and speeding up the shutter would have helped with any motion-blur due to the movement of the moon itself (why use f8? Sure don't have to worry about DoF at that distance)

[kirbinster]

It was 5 seconds at f/8. I thought I read somewhere that f/8 was good for moon shots. Also since I was using the f/2.8 lens with the TC the minimum f-stop was f/5.6. Further, to get max sharpness I closed down the lens 2 stops which gets me to f/8 with the TC.

[ravncat]

f8 is usually good for the moon when it's sunlit - during the eclipse, low light becomes more of an issue

[Digidave]

It was the wooden deck for sure. 5 seconds is a long time at 400mm. You would have to be rock solid for a shot of anything other than the moon. You would be amazed at how much the moon actually moves in 5 seconds.

[Photologyst]

Actually, it's a pretty cool photo. Kinda like half a Slinky.