help needed please

[rob1468]

Ok guys im new to the forum ,i am wanting to take some moon shots . I have a canon 550d , and a number of lens as follows canon 28-80mm, canon 50mm prime , canon 18-55 kit lens , canon 75-300 1:4-5.6 and a Tamron 55-200 1:4-5.6 , now do i need a telescope or spotting scope to get a good shot of the moon including outlines of craters , I also want to try some star picures when you get a good black background a the stars prominent , big ask i know but im hoping someone will point me in the direction i need , ive also got a good tripod cable release and some radio triggers for a flash unit
thanks in advance rob

[Shadowman]

No you don't need a telescope, your 75-300mm lens should be sufficient, also other lenses can be used if shooting cityscapes with setting moon in the background.

Moon Shot

[William W]

A recent thread on Starscapes - Night Photography and Starscapes

You probably don't have a fast enough lens to capture starscapes without any movement, but the 18mm end of the kit zoom will go close.

Also, you don't necessarily need radio triggers for the flash, you can move around and trigger them manually to illuminate the foreground - whilst the ambient light is capturing the starscape throughout the long exposure.


WW

[Tringa]

Hello Rob and welcome to CiC.

Whether you need a telescope or not depends on how much detail you want in your moon shots, but as John has noted a 300mm will give you a reasonable shot, especially if you crop it a bit. The EXIF data of this shot has been lost when I uploaded it to Photobucket but it cannot have been taken on a lens longer than 300mm on a 1.5x crop DSLR and it has been cropped.



For a close up of the moon avoid it when full as the shadows are small.


With star photos the 600 rule is a good place to start.

Max exposure in seconds before the stars begin to form trials =
600/(focal length of the lens x crop factor of the camera)

I have also seen 500 used instead of 600, and to borrow a phrase it is 'more what you'd call guidelines' than an actual rule, but it gives a starting point.

Your kit lens and a high ISO will get you something, provided you have a really dark sky - digital sensors are very good at picking up light pollution

This was taken with the kit lens on my camera which has a maximum aperture at the wide end of f3.5. Unfortunately I pushed the ISO a bit too much and introduced some noise.



If you get hooked on star photos this free software could be useful - http://deepskystacker.free.fr/english/index.html

Dave

[IzzieK]

I have only used a D300s with a 70-300mm lens once or twice during a full moon right in my backyard...and I think it was pretty good. I wasn't here at CiC at the time.

[DanK]

I don't do a lot of night sky shots, but I think you are asking for two very different things. Starry skies are usually shot with fast and very short lenses, while detailed shots of the moon require long lenses.

To get detailed shots of the moon at 300mm, you would have to crop quite a bit. This shot is of a harvest new moon (hence very large), taken with a crop-sensor camera (same field of view as yours), at 280mm. It is nearly uncropped.

[JR1]

Ok guys im new to the forum ,i am wanting to take some moon shots . I have a canon 550d , and a number of lens as follows canon 28-80mm, canon 50mm prime , canon 18-55 kit lens , canon 75-300 1:4-5.6 and a Tamron 55-200 1:4-5.6 , now do i need a telescope or spotting scope to get a good shot of the moon including outlines of craters , I also want to try some star picures when you get a good black background a the stars prominent , big ask i know but im hoping someone will point me in the direction i need , ive also got a good tripod cable release and some radio triggers for a flash unit
thanks in advance rob

You can also shoot constellations (Ursa Major) a you can see the double double in the tail





Wide angle, 28mm, 60 seconds should do it you don't need a drive just a tripod and lock the mirror up to stop vibrations

This calculator will help

use 200asa tele lens and 1/250th of a second

Shhot with a terminator for better images NOT a full moon

Patrick Moore was a friend of mine, I have been into Astronomy for 50 years