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Capturing detailed images of the moon requires ultra-long telephoto attain. At solely about 1/2 a level in diameter when it comes to area of view, the moon is a comparatively small goal that requires the usage of some actually lengthy optics. On this information, we define the main points of an extremely inexpensive lunar images equipment and why a typical full-frame or APS-C sensor digital digicam may not be the only option when attempting to shoot the moon.
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As a way to fill as a lot of the picture body with the complete disk of the moon, we ideally need a digicam and lens mixture that may attain a 35mm equal focal size round 1200mm to 2400mm.
Equal focal lengths shorter than 1200mm can work, however the smaller the moon seems within the body, the much less sensor space is getting used. Ideally, an equal focal size of 2000mm will enable the moon to fill a lot of the body, however nonetheless give a little bit margin for framing.
My earliest makes an attempt a capturing the moon utilized a full-frame Sony physique and both the 100-400mm GM lens (B&H, paid hyperlink) or my 420mm f/6 telescope. At round 400mm, the moon nonetheless seems small at only one/6 the peak of the body. Whereas I loved this equipment for a few of my moon photographs, and I may often crop for a low decision “shut up” of the moon, I desperately needed extra attain and backbone.
There are only some Sony E mount lens choices that may get my Sony a7C into the 1200-2400mm vary; they’re not precisely low-cost (B&H, paid hyperlink), and it’s not likely attainable to get previous that 1200mm mark with a full body sensor with shopping for a fairly large telescope. Switching to an APS-C digicam, just like the Sony a6600 (B&H, paid hyperlink) can get you to 1800mm equal with a 150-600mm lens and a 2x teleconverter. You will get to some comparatively lengthy equal focal lengths with native mount lenses, nevertheless it’s exhausting to search out something I’d name “inexpensive” that may strategy 2000mm equal. Past the Sony E mount system, the identical limitations apply to most digicam mounts, however we are able to get shut… Let’s check out some viable, albeit costly lengthy lens options for capturing the moon:
The Simple (and Costly) Technique to the Moon: Purchase a Massive Lens with a Appropriate 2x Teleconvertor:
Beneath are some straightforward lens and teleconverter combos that can get to these actually lengthy 1200mm to 2400mm equal focal lengths on any given digicam system. Whereas autofocus is just not vital or beneficial, it’s notable that a few of these combos won’t enable the lens to autofocus when utilizing a 2x teleconverter.
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The entire above choices are viable for getting an entire lot extra attain on your digicam, however all of them are comparatively costly choices. This information can also be presupposed to be the “inexpensive” solution to construct a lunar images equipment, so let’s maintain going and take a look at one other solution to shoot the moon.
The Inexpensive Package: Small Sensor, Massive Outcomes
I’ve been utilizing a small sensor digicam and telescope equipment that reaches these similar enormous equal focal size numbers with out breaking the financial institution. At solely about $600 for the digicam and telescope, it’s about 1/3 the price of a lot of the lens/teleconverter combos above. That is the route that I selected to take when constructing my private lunar images equipment and I’m enthralled at how nicely it captures the moon.
Watch our video about placing collectively this small sensor lunar images equipment and see a number of the images we’ve shot with it beneath:
Probably the most economical methods to achieve these extremely lengthy focal lengths is to benefit from a small sensor digicam. Somewhat than use a very huge telescope on a full body digicam, we are able to use a smaller sensor on a smaller telescope to benefit from the sensor’s crop issue to attain an extended equal focal size, all whereas maintaining the picture rig as small and low-cost as attainable.
Not solely is the equipment beneath out there comparatively cheaply, it’s “standalone” such that it doesn’t have to be hooked as much as a pc to seize pictures, akin to within the case of utilizing devoted astronomy digicam.
There are tons of decisions for telescopes out there in the marketplace and it may be an awesome job to buy your first telescope. I’ve personally discovered nice success with a price range telescope despatched to me by SVBONY, a Hong Kong based mostly telescope producer. This information is constructed round their most inexpensive astrophotography telescope.
Finally there are various viable telescope manufacturers for constructing comparable kits, however we like the worth that SVBONY telescopes present and I believe they’re an ideal place to start out for a primary astrophotography scope. Their scopes are extremely regarded throughout the astronomy and astrophotography group, notably for his or her optical high quality and inexpensive costs.
In line with their web site, SVBONY is an acronym that stands for “Saturn Venus Birding Optics Nature Youth” and is pronounced “SIV-bon-ee”.
The beneath advice targets a 2000mm equal focal size when contemplating the crop issue of the digicam sensor and the precise focal size of the telescope. This goal equivalence permits for the Moon to almost fill the body of the digicam sensor, with a little bit margin, in an effort to make use of as a lot of the digicam sensor as attainable whereas nonetheless becoming the complete disk of the Moon.
Equal focal lengths for much longer than 2400mm will sometimes not match the entire Moon within the body and would require some type of panorama stitching to shoot an entire Moon disk. That actually is a viable methodology for extremely excessive decision moon photographs, however is out of the scope of this newbie oriented information.
Our Alternative: Pentax Q-S1 + SVBONY SV503 70ED (420mm f/6)
The Pentax Q line (eBay, paid hyperlink) of cameras are all 12 megapixel sensors with both a 1/2.3″ (6.17mm x 4.55mm) on the Pentax Q and Q10 for a crop issue of 5.53x, or a barely bigger 1/1.7″ (7.44mm x 5.58mm) sensor on the Q7 and Q-S1 for a crop issue of 4.65x. These are some tiny sensors, however with their huge crop issue, any of those cameras is a superb alternative for lunar images. When paired with a reasonably small telescope these tiny point-and-shoot sized cameras makes for an additional inexpensive lunar images equipment. I exploit the Pentax Q-S1 for all of my lunar images and I believe the pictures communicate for themselves. This little digicam isn’t any slouch.
When constructing my lunar picture equipment, I actually needed to have the ability to maintain every thing comparatively easy, small and compact, in order that meant looking for a small sensor digicam that may even have the specs and options to assist lunar images. It wasn’t instantly obvious to me that the Pentax Q was pretty much as good a alternative as it’s and I really held again on shopping for one.
There have been solely ever just a few interchangeable lens cameras with sensors smaller than Micro 4/3″ and people have been: the Nikon 1 Sequence, the Samsung NX Mini, and the Pentax Q collection of cameras. Furthermore, none of those cameras are nonetheless being produced and should be bought on the second hand market. I instantly gravitated in the direction of the Nikon 1 collection of digicam, one way or the other pondering that the marginally larger decision 1″ sensors have been to my profit. I used to be incorrect, however the sensor of my Nikon 1 digicam wasn’t the issue.
I initially purchased and examined a Nikon 1 J5 (eBay, paid hyperlink) solely to search out out that it has quite a few {hardware} and software program roadblocks to its lunar capturing capabilities: no wired or infrared distant set off assist, a timelapse interval timer that solely supported a minimal interval of 5 seconds, and no handbook focus zoom help when utilizing absolutely handbook focus lenses with out the usage of an FT1 adapter.
In my analysis, I additionally discovered that the opposite Nikon 1 collection cameras, together with the flagship Nikon 1 V3, shared lots of the similar precise points. I attempted to make the Nikon 1 J5 work and nonetheless was capable of make just a few profitable pictures with it, however I hated the capturing expertise a lot that I made a decision to attempt the smaller, virtually toy-like Pentax Q collection as an alternative.
Because it seems, Pentax Q cameras aren’t toys and my expertise utilizing the Q-S1 was night-and-day higher than the Nikon 1 J5 that I attempted. Pentax inbuilt all of the options I’d have anticipated of a considerably extra enthusiast-oriented digicam into their Q line. The Q-S1 that I ended up shopping for has all of the issues that have been lacking on the Nikon 1 J5: it helps an infrared distant that may set off steady shutter drive for capturing about 1.5 pictures each second. It additionally has a built-in interval timer that may shoot as quick as 1 picture each 3 seconds.
And one of the crucial primary however important options was fortunately there: handbook focus zoom help was attainable for exact focusing.
There aren’t many small sensor interchangeable lens cameras out there on the used market, however of these out there, the Pentax Q line of cameras might be the only option for lunar images with out going for a devoted astrophotography digicam that must be tethered to a pc.
That stated, my Q-S1 isn’t good. It has a pair quirks that have to be thought-about: It doesn’t assist simulated publicity preview which implies that the live-view feed will all the time attempt to present a impartial publicity, unbiased of your handbook publicity settings. This implies you all the time must examine publicity with a check shot as a result of what you see is NOT what you get. This problem may also make the dwell view feed a little bit susceptible to showing overexposed when pointing on the moon as a result of the digicam will both be compensating for the extremely darkish black of house across the moon. I discovered that the most effective apply is to set the metering mode to spot-metering and to middle the illuminated a part of the moon beneath the meter spot within the body when making an attempt to tune focus in order that the inner meter adjusts the live-view feed to reveal for the lunar floor, fairly than the black of house.
Past that one problem, the Q-S1 is sort of nice to shoot with. I discovered that utilizing the “Distant Steady Capturing” shutter drive mode on the Q-S1 was most helpful for capturing as many pictures as attainable in a given capturing session: higher even than the interval timer. A single click on of the IR distant on this mode and the digicam quickly fires off a sequence of photographs at about 1.5 frames per second and it will possibly preserve this fee indefinitely till the battery runs out. This makes it attainable to seize about 90 pictures each minute, which is a good way to gether knowledge for a lucky-image stack. The built-in interval timer additionally works as a backup once you don’t have an infrared distant, nevertheless it has a minimal interval of three seconds so it’s fairly a bit slower.
The Scope
The SVBONY SV503 70ED (Amazon, paid hyperlink) is a 70mm diameter, 420mm focal size telescope making for an f/6 aperture. It’s nicely matched to the Pentax Q line of cameras for lunar images as a result of it gives an equal focal size of both 1953mm on the Q7 or Q-S1, which is able to virtually fill the body with the disk of the Moon, or when paired with the Q and Q10, an equal focal size of 2322mm which is able to fully fill the body with the complete disk of the moon.
Now we have discovered the SVBONY SV503 70ED to be exceptionally sharp on the small sensor Pentax Q-S1, particularly for such a small diameter, quick telescope. The main focus throw of the scope may be managed very exactly with its precision focuser and it additionally includes a small set screw to lock down the main focus. There have been just a few equipment wanted to suit the Pentax Q-S1 digicam as much as this telescope, which I’ve outlined beneath:
The Package:
- Pentax Q, Q10, Q7, Q-S1 Cameras (eBay, paid hyperlink)
- SVBONY SV503 70ED (420mm f/6) (Amazon, paid hyperlink)
- Crucial Equipment: T-Mount to Pentax Q Mount Adapter (B&H, paid hyperlink), 2″ to T-Mount Adapter (B&H, laid hyperlink)
- Elective Equipment: Pentax IR Distant (B&H), SVBONY Finderscope (Amazon, paid hyperlink)
- Tripod and head I exploit: Leofoto LS-255CEX (B&H) + Leofoto RH-1L Panorama Clamp (eBay, paid hyperlink) + Desmond DMH-2X1 (B&H, paid hyperlink)
Conclusion
Total, the sum of money wanted to spend money on the SVBONY scope and Pentax Q-S1 digicam is round $600 USD, which is notably the identical value as a single Canon RF 2x teleconverter (B&H, paid hyperlink). This equipment reaches almost 2000mm and I used to be capable of make investments significantly much less cash into my lunar images equipment than if I had used my full-frame Sony and tried to make use of native lenses. I believe that this strategy is an exceptionally economical solution to construct a lunar picture rig that reaches farther than most digicam lenses with out the necessity for a very massive, heavy and costly telescope.
After all, the key caveat of this entire strategy is that the Pentax Q line of cameras has been discontinued for a number of years and might solely be discovered on the used market. Together with the discontinuation of the Nikon 1 line of cameras, I personally suppose it’s a disgrace that there aren’t any extra small sensor interchangeable lens cameras being produced.
What are your ideas on utilizing a smaller sensor to realize extra telephoto attain?
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-Ian and Diana
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