Happy Friday. I took this image of the moon this morning. When I went out to get the Queen’s paper I saw a lot of low-level clouds floating by and I wanted to capture them with the almost full moon. There are several interesting things about this image (which in my mind is the best moon shot I have ever taken.) No it won’t win any awards but is it my personal best. You can click on the image to enlarge it.
It was taken around 4:30 a.m. so not the darkest time of the sky. We have a large vapor light in our block that shines very brightly on our back yard. Good for security, not so good for timed photography. And I tried a new set up this morning.
Camera Details: Nikon D4 | Nikon AF-S 80 – 400 f4.5-5.6 HG ED VR Lens | Nikon AF-S 2X Teleconverter TC-20E III | Remote shutter release | ISO 100 Manual setting f11 @ 1/80 Sec | Manual focus
What is different for me is using the Teleconverter. I’ve had it for a couple of years but just don’t remember to use it. It says it is auto focus and it is made by Nikon, however I find that it does a lot of hunting before it (if ever) locks on to what I’m trying to shoot. So it is just quicker to manual focus. Not my favorite thing to do because I haven’t had much practice and I haven’t gotten very good results in the past.
Where are the low-level clouds? Well by the time I got the camera, lens, and tripod set up and adjusted, the sky was clear of any trace of clouds. 😦
So by using the 2X TC, I extended my 400 mm lens to an 800 mm lens. If I had shot in “cropped mode” I could have picked up additional 400 mm in focal length. Cropped mode would be 1.5 X multiplier plus the 2 X TC would have given me 1,200 mm lens. WOW, I’m going to try that next time. 🙂
I was doing some testing last night with ISO settings and had been outside shooting in pretty much dark light at ISO 64000. It is amazing how good the images looked and with a little help from LightRoom 5 the noise is tolerable. Anyway when I came back in I saw Jeanne sitting at the breakfast bar and I thought now this is a great example of multitasking. Folding laundry, working on her schedule for school, and watching a TV show. 🙂
Enjoy our Friday. Going to get hot this weekend and into next week. A few more weeks and it will be my kind of weather. Thanks for stopping by. Be careful.
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