Full Moon (My First Attempt)

[lensbaby]

I am a lunar rookie. I shot this at f16 1/125 ISO 100.
Canon 20D, 100-400 L with a 1.4TC, mirror lockup with cable release.

I shot in Raw and converted to BW after levels and curves adjustments.

This image required some cropping and sharpening with USM after after resizing.

Comments or constructive whipping are appreciated. What other settings should I try?

http://stearnphotography.smugmug.com/photos/100355635-L.jpg

[JGD]

That is a really nice moon picture!

[padu]

That is a really nice moon picture!

Indeed. I thought that only with a telescope you could get such a picture. I'll try it someday.

[pathfinder]

Lensbaby

A very nice first effort at shooting the moon, Alice!!:wink

You probably used the Sunny 16 rule for exposure of the sunlit object, the full moon.

ISO 100 f16 1/125th just as called for by the Sunny 16 Rule (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=30235)

This is usually a good place to start for shooting the moon in Manual Mode.

I think this shot is slightly under exposed though, as the brightest 'white' pixels I can see in this shot only measure about 187,187,187 in the lower left portion of the moons brightest areas.

187,187,187 unfortunately is NOT white, but a light gray. ( 245,245,245 is more like a good white pixel.) This may be due to underexposure, or due to improper adjustments of Levels or Curves in post processing. If you had real whites in this image, it would have a lot more pop I think.

Try adjusting Curves or Levels to achieve a real white in your highlights, and see if you don't agree with my assessment:thumb