Moon and Equipment Comparison

While out late one afternoon doing some macro photography I noticed a gibbons moon rising. I couldn't resist taking a couple of shots with my recently purchased super telephoto lens. After seeing some stunning images of the moon I thought I'd look back through my archive to see how the lens compares with other moon shots.

So here's a brief history of my photographic equipment and the moon shots they're capable of.

This first image was taken in November 2006 in some remote part of Eastern Tibet. Back then my camera kit was a Canon S2 IS. It was a 5 MP camera with a 72mm lens at the long end. I also had a 1.5x tele converter giving me an EFL of 648mm. As you can see the moon is little more than a white smudge in a blue sky.


Canon S2 IS, 648mm EFL hand held for 1/1000s at f/4.5.

Later in 2009 I was out photographing the sunset and then the city lights of Morioka when I noticed the moon and thought I'd have another crack at it. This time my kit was a little more advanced. I borrowed my wife's Canon EOS Kiss X digital and attached my Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM lens. This time I'm using Canon L glass on a dSLR giving me an EFL of 320mm on a 10 MP sensor. How will this go? Well the moon is a little smaller in the frame so more cropping is required to fill out the frame. However we can now see some texture and detail of the surface. Some of the larger craters are also visable.


Canon EOS Kiss X Digital and Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM giving 320mm EFL tripod mounted for 1/100s at f/8 and ISO 100.

Fastforward to October 2010 and I'm out again photographing the moon. This time I've finally purchased my own dSLR, a Canon EOS 7D and even upgraded my lens to a Canon EF 400mm f5.6 L USM. I use this mostly for birds in Flight but wondered how it would go with the moon. This setup gives me an EFL of 640mm of Canon super tele L prime glass on an 18 MP sensor. This camera also supports live view which makes manual focusing much easier when zoomed in 10x. As an interesting side note, at this magnification, you can actually see the moon move through the night's sky, surprisingly quickly actually.

This time less cropping was required to fill the frame and with a few more megapixils a bit more detail is recorded. Even with the light pollution of Tokyo the detail is quite amazing, especially where the moon receives side lighting. The shadows really help to make the craters stand out.


Canon EOS 7D with a Canon EF 400mm f/5.6 L USM giving 640mm EFL, tripod mounted and manual focused with 10x live view and exposed for 1/80s at f5.6 and ISO 200. (click image to enlarge)

Next time I get the chance, I'll add my 2x tele-converter for 1280mm EFL at f/11. Should be interesting.