ken_cabeen

<p>Nice photos, everyone. Here's a composite shot of the Perseid meteor showers from August 12. The base image, as all images throughout the night, was taken with a Nikon D750, 14-24 at 14mm, f/2.8, 30 seconds at ISO 3200. I layered all the visible meteors from about 10 images captured over a 2-hour period onto the base layer.<img src="http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee235/beenyboy/NewTotalMet_1fb.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="668" /></p>

<p>I second Michael's advice, as well as the use of a good old Century Lens like the one he used to get that fantastic moon photo. I have a Century 650mm f/6.8 Tele Athenar II (the TA I not ideal for some reason) and it gives astonishingly beautiful, sharp photos of the moon. They can be found on ebay from time to time for not too much money. But make sure you can return it if necessary; some of them don't focus all the way out to infinity because someone may have changed the T-ring mount from, say, a Canon (for which the lens was set up for originally at the Century facility) to a Nikon T-ring, which will alter the focal plane distance. If you really want to go crazy on it, try image stacking with a program such as Registax. I've gotten some great results doing that.</p>

<p>Full moons aren't very interesting due to their lack of texture definition from being fully lit, but it's the first such moon on Christmas in nearly 40 years, so I thought it deserved a little commemoration nonetheless. Happy Holidays, everyone.</p><div></div>

<p>Thanks, David.<br> I do realize it mostly comes down to the photographer, but I'm still always curious about the gear used to get great pictures. Autofocus and vibration reduction lenses have really helped me, however, with my advancing-age-related eyesight deterioration and less-than-rock-steady stance of my youth! It sounds like you're pretty well set up with hard- and software.<br> I recently got a full frame sensor camera and was thinking about selling my 1.5x crop sensor D300s, but decided to keep it mainly because whatever telephoto lens I have gets 50% more powerful with it. I have an old manual focus 650mm lens I got for a graduation present back in 1980 that was state of the art in terms of sharpness in its day. That's what I used for the first moon pic I posted here.<br> Happy shooting and Happy Holidays!<br> Ken</p>

<p>Handheld?! Wow, you are a steadier man than me! If I may ask, what setup did you use for that? It's a great shot, handheld or not, for sure. Yes, that's Yosemite, last October 22. Fall is so beautiful there -- bright, clear skies and usually no wind. The only bummer is usually no dramatic clouds.</p>

Thanks, David. So yours is the moonset over Mt Evans. Very nice! I like seeing pics of the moon as part of a landscape scene.<div></div>

Nice pictures. I like the Mount Evans shot particularly much. I have an old Century Tele Athenar II 650mm f/6.8 that gives great pictures of the moon.<div></div>