This was the best I could do, with a Mamiya 300mm lens and I think a teleconverter on a 40D and very robust Canon tripod. Having shot the moon a few times, I appreciate the level of equipment it takes.
Then, there's the person operating it, the waiting, spotting, etc. etc. It's not child's play, and you guys have posted some really impressive shots. If only I had some extra reeeeach.....
BTW, at a larger size, this image falls apart. Not like the JUMBO stuff posted here, it's enviously smooth.
FWIW, let nobody say that Los Angeles' air is THAT crappy!
One of the things I've noticed with the 7D is that it doesn't AF reliably with stacked converters like the 5D2 does. I put the 2X and 1.4X on the 400/2.8 (which reports to the camera that it is f/5.6 even though the combination is f/8) on the 5D2 and I still get center AF point autofocus fairly reliably. With the 7D, this doesn't happen consistently. It's a hit-or-miss, with more miss than hit.
Oh well, I'm cheating anyway, trying to get AF on the moon with what's essentially an f/8 lens combination. I did try the stacked converters with the 7D anyway, taking care to manually focus both through the viewfinder and through live view. My best result had a bit of CA, and I think that the 7D might be outresolving the combination just a bit. My best stacked result, when reduced to the size of the 800 mm setup, was still a bit softer than the crisp result that I got with 800 mm. Could be a focus issue though - AF has always been better than my eye through the viewfinder, especially when the camera is pointed upward so much.
I'll give it a few more tries before I give up on the stack. In the meantime, the 800 mm 7D shot still lands more pixels on the moon than the 1120 mm 5D2 shot. And that is a big plus!
What a great age we live in where we can capture images like this with relative ease ... compared to only a few years ago, in fact. Thanks for posting.
That video of Romy's is a reminder of something really special - the moon doesn't rotate - it's locked to the rotation of the earth.
Yea everyone knows that, but it's what makes life incredibly rare and special on this planet.
(very large close satellite stabilises the earths tilt to the sun to make it habitable)
Here is a heavily cropped shot from my 5D MII and 400 2.8L. This was my first attempt at a moon shot... it won't be the last. I'm going to try this again with a 1.4 tc
Thanks for sharing
