First Lunar image

[themaninthesuitcase]

While I've taken "potshots" of the moon before this was my first real attempt to do it any real justice.

The camera was a Nikon D7000 ISO 400 at 1/320th which was pointing through a Nikon 300mm 2.8 with a 2x tele-convertor at f8.

I followed a tutorial on processing using PIPP and registax which I have bookmarked.

Starting with a select 110 raw NEF images (from about 140 taken) I exported them to full quality TIFFs from lightroom, used PIPP to preprocces and convert to mono and then took the best 100 to registax where I ended up stacking about 60 odd I think.

As it's a first punt any feed back where I could do better would be appreciated.  I think I was probably heavy handed with the wavelets but I didn't really know what I was doing there, need to read the manual.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Very nice first effort I would say. You are right that holding back on wavelets would be better. That gives a bit more natural look, and can actually improve detail in the mare.  Still, you seem to have nailed focus very well. The exposure is also good, with no saturation (apart from one or two highlights, which may be caused by wavelets, I guess).

[gazza63]

Yes, like you said... a bit heavy on the wavelets, also very bright. Nice first shot though.

[Luke]

That's a really excellent first moon image, a lot of detail to see    Well done. For me it's a bit on the bright side too.

[themaninthesuitcase]

Seems I need to do some reading on what wavelets are and how they work then rather than sliding stuff about blind.

Interesting you say it's to bright.  I used Expose to the right (ETTR) to ensure that the data was good and just kept adding exposure until data was clipped then backed back off a touch.  This obviously leads to a brighter image, but crucially one with less noise. So as a result when I processed I did back off the exposure a fair amount, but I later added a bit back on again as I figured it's a bright object.  Clearly I should have stayed with my initial though on that.

Focus I have the huge advantage of decades of research and billions of yen to thank.  Autofocus is great!

Thanks for all comments everyone.