Moon and Stars

An experiment in extreme telephoto shooting. This was taken with a Nikon 600mm f4 + TC-14IIE teleconverter and on the Nikon V1. Totting it all up this is equivalent to a 2,268 mm f 5.6 lens! Just to clarify this is a full frame shot, no cropping.

I've been waiting for a clear night for some days and this has been the first opportunity for some experimentation. The big issues were sharp focus and vibration. The lens was on a Calumet Gimbal Head and Gitzo 3 series carbon fibre tripod. I also set the Nikon v1 to electronic shutter and used an IR release. Even with these precautions i only had about 25% sharp images. Even as I looked through the viewfinder I noticed the focus shimmering in and out. I concentrated on the craters near the day/night margin to get best focus and relied on manual adjustments.

Oh and just in case you are wondering I will own up now. The background is from another image. A little bit of poetic licence.