Full Moon
Uploaded: September 27, 2001
Kodachrome 64; eff. f=600mm; eff. aper. f/11; 1/130th
Jordan December 14, 2003 0
Hi JohnFirst of all I'd like to say nice photo.
Secondly, I'd like to ask you a question, maybe you'd know. I recently attempted to take a picture of a full moon and I used a 300mm lens and Kodak 400 film. Basically, the pic is just a round white ball in a black background. It doesn't show any of the detail I was after, like yours has. I noticed you used a much less sensitive film. Do you think that could be the issue? Also, I've been trying to find some ISO 64 or slower film. Where did you get yours?
Thanks in advance for any help you can give. #80313
John A. Lind December 15, 2003 0
The secret is not so much the film speed as it is properly setting the exposure manually. Bracket the exposure.And . . .
If you're using negative film having the printer print it at the proper density. This is a common problem with automated print machines trying to find the density balance between the black background and the comparatively very bright moon. If you suspect this you need to look at the negatives. If you see moon surface detail on the negative but it's nothing but a white spot in the print, the print is not dense enough and have them do it over.
Last . . .
It requires about a 1200mm lens to fill a 35mm camera frame with the moon. A 300mm lens will produce a small image. For this one I used a 300mm with 2X TC for an effective length of 600mm and the image is cropped to about 1/4th of the frame (half the dimension in each direction chopped off).
-- John #295297
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