Vforce Productions

Super Moon

• By Vien
• 8 October, 2014
• Comments Off on Super Moon

Nikon D7000, 11-16mm f2.8

So this week there was suppose to be a super moon, blood moon and an eclipse moon.  Awesome right? So the big questions is which camera should I use?  My goal is to shoot the moon with a 200mm or better.  My Nikon D7000 , with a 85mm with a 1.5x cropped factor, only has a reach of 127.5 mm.  My Panasonic GH3 just got back from the shop for a repaired.  The GH3 with my 135mm lens, with a crop factor of 2x will give me 270mm, plus using the Ex. Tele Conv 4x will give me something close to 900mm.

Looks like the Panasonic is a winner! Also on Nikon, when the mirror popup, there’s a small camera shake, its bad for long exposure.  I know I can use the “Mirror up Mode(Mup)” to prevent camera shake, but the GH3 is mirrorless how cool is that!

Panasonic GH3, 135mm(4x zoom) f11

So I got up about 5:45am to get this blood moon shot.  My GH3 setting was something like f11, 1/125 shutter, ISO 200. Using a tripod and 2 second self timer.

Panasonic GH3, 135mm(Telecoverter “on”, 4x zoom) f11

Around 6:18am I took this with my GH3 on my way to work with the same setting.  Lunar eclipse at its best!

Panasonic GH3, 135mm (Telecoverter “on”, 4x zoom) f11

I took this picture of a super moon the night before.

Conclusion:

So different camera for different jobs! Depending on what lens you have to go with it. I decided to use my Panasonic GH3 with my 135mm Minolta MD lens combo for moon shots and my Nikon d7000 with my Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens combo for shooting nightskys/stars.

We would like to hear about your favorite camera/lens setup for Moon/nightskys? Please feel free to leave a comments below.