Shooting the Moon, With a Crappy Lens

[Rekd]

Hey all. On Dec 31st I (finally) learned how to shoot the moon. Here's the shot with and without post processing.

100% crop with zero post processing.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2787/4232776140_fbb0fe5e22_o.jpg

100% crop with unsharp mask applied.
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4048/4233881785_434c57c3a0_o.jpg

I know the obvious critique is that there's a nasty white ring around the bottom of both images. It's more obvious on the second, post processed image. I could get rid of it with the clone tool or something, but I'm not sure if it's my settings that caused it or the lens.

The lens I used is very old. It's a Canon 70-210 EF f/4 that my wife used with her 35mm EOS 750 before we got married over 15 years ago.

This is the very first time I got a good shot of the moon, so I'm very happy, but I think it could be better. Exif data is intact, but here's the basics:

# Canon EOS 7D
# Exposure Time (1 / Shutter Speed) = 1/125 second ===> 0.008 second
# Lens F-Number / F-Stop = 11/1 ===> ƒ/11
# ISO Speed Ratings = 100

C&C is more than welcomed. I have thick skin so don't hold back. I really want to learn and know I can't do it without learning what I'm doing wrong.

Thanks!

[Hertz van Rental]

The optics are fine, it's just that you are asking it to do something that it wasn't really designed to do under far from ideal conditions.
Firstly, telephoto and zoom lenses are not astronomical telescopes.
Camera lenses generally have a lot of elements inside them, usually in groups. These lenses and groups of lenses don't just focus the light, they are also used to correct various optical aberrations and distortions. And they are designed to be used under optimum conditions - daylight and terrestrial distances.
When you start using them under low light conditions at extreme distances (Earth to Moon is approximately 250,000 miles) the amount of glass in there and the interfaces between them starts to present various problems.
If you look at the top edge of the first image you will see a blue fringe whilst at the bottom you will see a yellowish one. This is chromatic aberration and is most probably caused by the lens.
In addition the large amount of atmosphere you are looking through makes it's presence felt and the net result is an image with a lot of micro-distortion.
When you sharpen the image using whatever program all these errors, distortions and aberrations are enhanced and you get strange effects and artifacts.
To be blunt, there are more knowledgeable people on here than me when it comes to astrophotography and you would do better to enquire of them the best way to photograph the moon. It may include buying a telescope.
At the moment I would advise you to start with Wikipedia and read around the subject: camera lenses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photographic_lens) and astronomical telescopes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescope).
You should also read up on sharpening algorithms (http://photonotes.org/cgi-bin/photo-entry.pl?id=Sharpeningalgorithms).
And then you will better understand why the image you have got with the equipment you have is probably the best you will get.

[Rekd]

The optics are fine, it's just that you are asking it to do something that it wasn't really designed to do under far from ideal conditions.
Firstly, telephoto and zoom lenses are not astronomical telescopes.
Camera lenses generally have a lot of elements inside them, usually in groups. These lenses and groups of lenses don't just focus the light, they are also used to correct various optical aberrations and distortions. And they are designed to be used under optimum conditions - daylight and terrestrial distances.
When you start using them under low light conditions at extreme distances (Earth to Moon is approximately 250,000 miles) the amount of glass in there and the interfaces between them starts to present various problems.
If you look at the top edge of the first image you will see a blue fringe whilst at the bottom you will see a yellowish one. This is chromatic aberration and is most probably caused by the lens.
In addition the large amount of atmosphere you are looking through makes it's presence felt and the net result is an image with a lot of micro-distortion.
When you sharpen the image using whatever program all these errors, distortions and aberrations are enhanced and you get strange effects and artifacts.
To be blunt, there are more knowledgeable people on here than me when it comes to astrophotography and you would do better to enquire of them the best way to photograph the moon. It may include buying a telescope.
At the moment I would advise you to start with Wikipedia and read around the subject: camera lenses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photographic_lens) and astronomical telescopes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescope).
You should also read up on sharpening algorithms (http://photonotes.org/cgi-bin/photo-entry.pl?id=Sharpeningalgorithms).
And then you will better understand why the image you have got with the equipment you have is probably the best you will get.

Excellent reply, thank you! I've got a Mead telescope, and have considered getting a camera mount for it for this reason. My dad had one back in the day and he did some real cool stuff with it. After doing this shot it got me into "hopeful" mode and we'll have to see where it goes from here.

Thanks again for the insightful post and links. :thumbup:

[polymoog]

What Hertz says is true, but I think you did a good job with the equipment you had, there is plently of detail there. I would avoid 100% crops at any time to be honest, you can go up close for pp but a full zoom will always reveal any limitations or problems in the picture. I normally save pics at about 33% of the maximum resolution but that is because even at 50% I can start to see signs of things that went wrong with the image, such as CA or blurry edges, (some of which I could have should have fixed myself as a photographer when taking the pics, but other things might be beyond my control, such as this case, you have max 210mm and the moon is a long way away) You may get away with more.

Did you take the pic in RAW or jpg format? If you shoot RAW you will have more image information to work with in pp and the results of any given action will almost certainly be better. To be honest I don't think the image needs sharpening at all, esp if you keep it smaller. As I said, the more image you have to work with, the better the results you will get, and if you then resize the image and just accept that the subject is a bit smaller, you will have a better picture overall.

But as I said in the beginning, it is a good shot to start with, and I definitely think it would be cool if you got a camera mount for your telescope http://www.polymoog.se/smilies/icon_thumright.gif

[Rekd]

Thanks, moog. I took this in jpg format. Haven't gotten into RAW yet, but it's on my list. I'll prolly wait 'til I have a bigger memory card. I have a 4 gig card now. (Actually I have two, but the second one I bought might be a clone because it doesn't have the same write speed as the original one, I can see it when I do video)

[mentos_007]

Hi!
I think that with the equipment you have you did a good job. Unfortunately you spoiled a bit with post processing and sharpening tool because there are jpg artefacts visible. I think that simply adjusting a contrast and levels would be enough - this does not add the ugly "drops" and does not enhance very very small pixel luminance difference in the mask of filter.