1st Widefield Venus and Moon with 1000D

[acharris77]

Hi all, I thought I would take this opportunity to try out my new toy, so I seen Venus and a Crescent moon, so thought I would try hand held until I sort out my Tripod option. I was reasonably happy with the shot considering I am still trying how to use all the settings and menus to set exposure and stuff.

Anyway my attempt is below, any advice and criticism would be most welcomed to know in future to get better photos.

[yeti monster]

I tried during last nights occultation, but fear that my wee fuji is not man enough for such shots, I'll be checking what I caught later, if anything worthwhile, I shall post.

[Psychobilly]

Nice first shot...

What mode are you usign the camera in?

When you get a tripod you will be able to use lower ISO and get less noise and richer colours..

With the 18-55 I would try and keep the shutter speed shorter than 15s to avoid any noticeable triailing and adjust ISO and aperture to suit...

Larger f-stop will make focus less critical although by using liveview and zooming in its pretty straightforward to manually focus...Larger f stop will also make sure foreground objects are in sharp focus but has to be balanced against the need for longer exposure and more chance of a breeze blurring them ...

When your shooting sunsets use -0.5 to -1.5 stops of exposure compensation to help saturate the colours...

I have found a "large" jessops B&S head that you can have to get you going with the piggyback shots on the mount .. pm me your addy...

Peter...

[jgs001]

It's a very nice result... especially for hand held... Looking at your settings..

Camera Maker: Canon

Camera Model: Canon EOS 1000D

Image Date: 2010-05-16 21:27:05 +0100

Focal Length: 55.0mm

Aperture: f/14.0

Exposure Time: 0.020 s (1/50)

ISO equiv: 800

Exposure Bias: none

Metering Mode: Matrix

Exposure: Manual

Exposure Mode: Manual

White Balance: Auto

Flash Fired: No (Manual)

Color Space: sRGB

Brave man tackling manual with a brand new camera ...

You were probably right on the limit for handholding, but as you were using manual, I suspect you know that . For shots like this of the moon and targets that far away, you really don't need to stop the lens down this far f/14 is really cutting your light away. If you opened the lens up to something like f/6.3 or f/7.1 you'd be able to drop the ISO down to maybe 200, limiting the noise, and still be able to get a fast enough shutter speed to handhold.

As for a tripod... the redsnapper is excellent, and for a lot less money than you might think too.