A smoky Blue Moon

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DRwyoming

DRwyoming

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Have had some rain and a reprieve from the Western wildfire smoke but the clouds cleared and the smoke returned just in time for last night's Blue Moon. Wasn't planning on going out to shoot last night but when this came up over the horizon I grabbed my gear. Gotta say, exposing for moon shots is a lot easier with a MILC and WYSIWYG exposure through the viewfinder.

Nikon Z6 II, 600mm f/4 E FL + TC-20e iii (1200mm), f/8, 1/50", ISO 640, -1EV Exposure Comp
Z62_0930--20210822-Websize.jpg
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arshuter said:
Nice, looks good. Why such a high ISO, curiosity mostly.
Click to expand...
Well I'd already dropped to 1/50" while shooting 1200mm of lens and even on a good tripod there's vibrations so I didn't want to push it too far. I suppose I could have tried dropping the shutter speed further (aperture was wide open for the lens + TC combo) but in the past I haven't had great luck with long exposures on moon shots with that much lens.

The Z6 II also handles ISO 640 quite well. Sure there's a reduction in DR relative to base ISO but the IQ and noise at ISO 640 isn't something I'm worried about for an image like this where all the detail falls in a fairly narrow dynamic range. Here's a 100% crop from the original image, not really any discernible shadow noise or lost detail at ISO 640 to my eyes.
Z62_0930--20210822-100pct.jpg
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Thanks Dave. I always shot full moons trying to get as much detail as I possibly can. Hoping to one day get the flag Mr. Neil Armstrong planted, kind of detail. Heck I've even used a 2.0 and 1.4 in combination with my 500 pf but always at a low ISO mostly 64.
 
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Dave, absolutely outstanding! I had gone out early this month for the new moon, to attempt my first storm pictures & we had so much smoke, there wasn’t a star overhead. It was really kind of eery. Air quality had really been bad, but now we clearing up.

once again, just a great picture. Wow oh wow!
 
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