First Moon

[The Warthog]

Well, this represents my first ever prime focus shot of the moon, on ASA200 colour film, at 1/60th second, through my 1000mm f/9.5 refractor. All the shots I took using various combinations of Barlow were grainy and underexposed. It is very hard to get fast colour film any more, too.

I am not real happy with this, but it appears to be in pretty good focus, and I kinda like the colour. I'll have another go next time I get a chance...

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Looks very promising WH. Do you have a remote shutter release thing, or a self-timer that you can use? It helps stop the 'scope wobbling, which is the biggest factor. One day soon you'll have a 10"X8" moon framed on your wall.

Kaptain Klevtsov

[SteelRat]

Do you have a remote shutter release thing, or a self-timer that you can use?

Or even 'hat-trick' stylee. Nice old school stuff there WH 8)

[The Warthog]

I have a cable release on order, and I started using the self-timer after I took this shot, but those were the shots that were taken through the Barlow, and were impossibly underexposed. I've also ordered batteries that should fit the camera and operate the light meter.

And I've bought a roll of ISO1600 colour film.

I priced some digital SLRs last night. I don't mind being old school.

[Ant]

For a film shot mate that is stunning... I can't imagine going back to attempting film... It's so hard. Your right the focus looks good, I'd say that that it was a Little over exposed.

I think that the DSLR is Rubbish for the moon. I got fantastic results with a little Digi Cam that I connected via the DIGI T system (Pentax EI2000) was the model. It was only 2.2 Mega pixels. But it was great!

So if your only after the moon, consider something less than a DSLR.

I WISH I had never sold the camera!

Ant

[The Warthog]

You are all very kind! I think I may try a better setup for afocal photography than I have been using, as some of the results I had were pretty good. One of the things about having a digital SLR is that I mainly take snapshots now, not the kind of arty photographs I was trying 40 years ago, so a decent small digital works fine for me. I still know how to compose a shot, after all. If I bought a digital SLR, it would be mainly for lunar and other astrophotography, and it isn't really worth the investment for me. I think I can have fun with a film camera and the moon. I'm not trying to win any prizes, and this shot was fun to show to a few friends.

[SteelRat]

8)

[barkis]

Good effort WH, you are a very modest guy with his feet firmly on the ground.

I have spent quite a bit of bread in the hope I can get somewhere near the quality I see on this forum. I tried for a long time with very modest setups, and all I ever achieved was a few images I could call good. I loved to image the moon, and developed my own negatives in order to save on needless printing. My greatest successes were with Mono film, such as Kodak Tech Pan 2415, and Tri-x. Fine grain stuff was 2415, some used to Hyper it, but I never bothered with that. I am not sure if those films are still available, I suppose they must be, as film work is far from dead yet. I got rid of all of the developing equipment, and destroyed the images too. I regarded the whole episode as a failure.

However I am back for another attempt, and with a new excitement about it all. If the imaging side becomes another nightmare, I will still enjoy the observational side.

I think in a few years you might buy yourself a DSLR. by then, they will be quite cheap hopefully.

Ron.

[lunator]

WH

Thats a good pic of the Moon.

If you want to do afocal pics then any reasonable compact camera willbe good for the Moon. You could prbably pick up a 3MP camera very cheap secondhand.

Cheers

Ian