pictures of the moon

<p>Hi folks, I've been doing a lot of macro these days and looking for a change I decided the moon would be a great subject. I have been looking for a 500 / 1000 mm lens on ebay and I'm finding lots of unknown brands (opteka, rokinor, telsar, paramon, etc...) . Anybody can help with them, maybe owns such a lens and have some advice. Also any suggestions on the moon subject, and how to make the best pictures?</p>

<p>In the 500 to 1000mm focal length range, so long as you're not looking for a fast lens, it's really hard to get a bad one. Just not very challenging from a optical design point of view -- everything is "on axis".<br>

The mirror lenses are another matter. Many of them are rather nasty, and you have no aperture control. The Vivitar Series 1 "Solid CAT" lenses made by Perkin Elmer are superb, but pricey.<br>

However, consider the problems with the fact that the moon is not stationary in the sky. With a 1000mm lens, you're getting to the point that you'll get blur if you don't use a moderately fast shutter speed. Look into sites on astrophotography to see what's involved in successfully photographing the moon with a lens of that focal length.</p>

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<p>Here's a link to a member of PN who recently posted a photo of the moon in the critique forum. He may be of help to you:<br>

<a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/9100976">http://www.photo.net/photo/9100976</a></p>

<p>The Tamron Adaptall SP 500mm f/8 mirror lens is well regarded and inexpensive. Mine with matching 2X teleconverter cost me less than $150 used. It's sharp with decent contrast.<br /> The mirror lenses you can buy new for $100 are not nearly as good. I think cheap telephotos will do better than the cheap mirrors.</p>

<p>You could look for one of these, A Meade Schmidt Cassegrain 1000mm f10 telescope. It works well for terrestrial shooting and moon shots (no cropping).<br /> <a title="ImageShack - Image And Video Hosting" href="http://img74.imageshack.us/my.php?image=imgp2901moonshotbr3.jpg" target="_blank" title="ImageShack - Image And Video Hosting"><img src="http://img74.imageshack.us/img74/6632/imgp2901moonshotbr3.jpg" border="0" alt="" width="728" height="577" /> </a></p>

<p>With the Tamron 28-75mm for reference:<br /> <a title="ImageShack - Image And Video Hosting" href="http://img185.imageshack.us/my.php?image=2307081349fi6.jpg" target="_blank" title="ImageShack - Image And Video Hosting"><img src="http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/1925/2307081349fi6.jpg" border="0" alt="" width="612" height="460" /> </a></p>

<p>This lens generally sells around $200 USD and IMO well worth it. You're not going to use it every day but it's fun to shoot with.<br /> <a title="ImageShack - Image And Video Hosting" href="http://img329.imageshack.us/my.php?image=imgp2832gbhsignedsmdu8.jpg" target="_blank" title="ImageShack - Image And Video Hosting"><img src="http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/6962/imgp2832gbhsignedsmdu8.jpg" border="0" alt="" width="775" height="552" /> </a></p>

<p><a title="ImageShack - Image And Video Hosting" href="http://img73.imageshack.us/my.php?image=imgp3067signedgu8.jpg" target="_blank" title="ImageShack - Image And Video Hosting"><img src="http://img73.imageshack.us/img73/235/imgp3067signedgu8.jpg" border="0" alt="" /> </a></p>

<p>That's funny, my brother just picked up a Bausch & Lomb Criterion 4000 in a garage sale for $45. It is 1200mm f/12 and the moon fills the outside circle of my Katz Eye screen quite well. With the 30mm eyepiece, it projects to 5600mm f/56, I think.<br>

<br />I haven't had a chance to pull the images of the card yet, but if the shakes weren't too bad, the IQ looked pretty decent.<br>

<br />I have also shot plenty with a conventional 500mm like the ones on eBay for about $90. I'll try to post shots from both tomorrow...</p>

<p>Russian MTO 1000mm, jpeg straight out of my K100DS</p>

<p><img src="http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg228/Banershka/Moonuncrop.jpg" alt="" /></p>

<p>The moon is a bright, sunlit object so, exposure times required are quite short. The closer towards full and the higher in the sky the smaller exposure times are needed. For an f/10 system 1/125 sec is a good starting point for experiments. A few things are important to consider, though: Inhomogenities in the air and air turbulence (bad seeing) can be seriously annoying with large focal lengths and make a lens look much more bad than it is. You have the best chances of success when the mooun is high in the sky and when you are shooting over grass or similar; also absolute aperture is important, as details on the moon are very small. You should go for an aperture of about at least 2.5 inches. Finally, focusing is CRITICAL. All in all: Shoot many (I mean scores of) pictures and expect a few decent results. I use a Tamron SP 350 mm catadioptric lens wit a 2X teleconverter (same type as the 500 mm lens discussed above). Attached is an example. This image is straight out of my Pentas *ist DL. It is a 1/30 sec exposure at ISO 800 taken when the moon was very low (: after full moon) in the sky but at a night of exceptionally good seeing.</p><div></div>