I love the moon. My father has a pair of strong binoculars which, when I was a kid, used to point at the moon to see the craters. The moon never fails to mesmerize, so my apologies for blogging a picture of the moon for the tenth time 🙂
Every now and then, when the sky is clear and we have a good view at the moon, I mount my Samyang 800 mm f8 mirror lens and point it towards the moon. The lens is comparatively cheap (around 230 Euros), which is an unbeatable focal-length-per-money-ratio. The lens is totally minimalistic, no autofocus and perhaps not the most sophisticated optical construction in terms of color fringing and sharpness. But, if handled with care, it produces wonderful results like this shot from today:
Nikon D800, 800 mm, f8, 1/800s, ISO 1.600, color fringing removed with Lightroom
(click here to see the image without that correction)
“Auxiliary” settings:
- tripod (d’uuuuhhh)
- self-timer 5 seconds (to eliminate vibrations caused by the pressing of the shutter button)
- exposure delay mode 3s (=mirror goes up, 3 s nothing to let the vibrations of the mirror movement die down, then exposure).
