affinity photo Full Moon 2022-01-17 over Hamburg

[NotMyFault]

Canon EOS 80D

• Sigma EF 150-600 at 600
• 1/800s
• F 8
• ISO 200
• Hand-held
• Stack of 2 from 26 hand-selected images (best match / lots of thermal noise in athmosphere)

 

[Crystal Gillis]

Woah, hand held, I wish I had such a steady hand.  Amazingly close, very nice!

[NotMyFault]

Thank you, @Crystal Gillis. 
It is actually easier to make moon shots handheld than using a tripod (I don’t own a star tracker).

I had multiple tripods and heads, my current is carbon-fiber and top notch. Unfortunately the moon moves so fast, that when you perfectly centered it using a tripod, you need about 20 seconds wait to fade away the vibrations before you can trigger. During that time the moon moves outside the center area to the edge, where sharpness of the lens degrades noticeably.

Luckily the moon is really bright, and the combination of 1/800s and a good image stabilization in the lens does the trick.

As the distance does not change, you do not need to refocus between shots, and the exposure is set fully manual. So I can use full high speed 10/second continuous shooting, and select those 10-30% images which are perfectly sharp.

The lens and camera have about 2.5 kg / 5lbs weight, using both arms and use right hand on the camera and left hand at the outer edge of the 60cm lens, giving you a relative stable triangle configuration.

A tripod is very sensitive to vibrations induced by yourself, the ground (bridges with traffic are worst), and wind which dominates the weather in Hamburg.

 

[NotMyFault]

Out of thousands moon shots I made over 10 years this is really one if my 3 favorites. The bright edge in the top left sector is unique, never got this in other shots.