I just took a bunch of photos of the moon with my D2X and 70-200VR. Only the shots taken at 1/200 and faster were what I would consider to be even reasonably sharp. It is a hot humid night in Seattler so conditions may not be ideal and that may explain some of the softness.
However, under normal daylight circumstances where I am photographing a subject say 50 feet away I can shoot at 1/45 and sometimes 1/20, though that is rare. Assuming I am not having an especially bad hand-shake night, does subject distance affect VR's ability to stabilize an image? Maybe there is a correlation to both subject size and distance? If that is the case, the moon is a real long ways away, but is physically fairly large in the viewfinder. I have shot license plates that were close to my but fuller frame than the moon is this evening.
Forgive me if this is a lame subject but It is 89 degrees fahrenheit in my house right now and my brain is about fried.
There is another thing you have to take into account: it is anyway very difficult to take very sharp pictures of the moon because of the air in-between...
You could also try to use a TC because a focal length of 200mm is quite short. You need at least 800mm or more to take a "detail" shot and again you will have some haziness.
gugs wrote:
There is another thing you have to take into account: it is anyway very difficult to take very sharp pictures of the moon because of the air in-between...
You could also try to use a TC because a focal length of 200mm is quite short. You need at least 800mm or more to take a "detail" shot and again you will have some haziness.
Gugs,
Below is the best moon shot I have taken to date. It it with a Sigma 50-500 at 500m on my old 10D. Until I have the funds for an 80-400, the 200 will have to do. It is definitely on the short side for moon work, but for me shooting the moon is something that once I have done, I tend to move on. That is until I get a new camera and have to try again.
Hi Greg,
Subject size should not have any impact on the VR. Only the camera/lens movement has any impact on it. In your case, there are a few things, which affects VR.
1) The subject itself (As you have already figured, the moon moves pretty fast. So to get usable pictures you need at least 1/60. I have no scientific proof for this, it is just my personal experience)
2) The angle you are shooting. If you are hand holding the camera, it is more prone to shake when you are pointing it upwards or at a higher angle for longer duration of time.
3) The weight of the combo you are using. Both D2X and 70-200 are heavy stuff. I don't know how healthy you are. However, I will be pretty tired after pointing this stuff upward for more than 10 mins
I can bet that you will have greater success if you use a monopod. If you have already used on for your shooting, please ignore everything I have just said in this post.
regards,
-Beji
That is a 100% crop and it is the best shot I have taken. I have yet to surpass it with respect to sharpness and have chalked it up to shooting conditions. That image was tripod mounted and for the other poster, I will try a monopod with my 70-200 next time I shoot. I almost always used a Monopod with my 10D and Sigma 50-500 and my success rate sky rocketed.
I still would like to be able to consistently shoot at 2/(focal length) with my 70-200VR and that may just take practice.
