Best 400mm for Moon shooting?

[cgustav]

Hi there,

I'm looking for a good, affordable 400mm (if this is good enough to get a good picture of the Moon).
I should mount it on a Nikon D3100, if there are no many options then I think I could go with a 7D.
Is it 50-70 bucks too restricted as budget?
If it's a good lens I might end up using it also for other type of shooting, perhaps macro if that might work.

Thanks for any info!

Cheers,
Carl

[Attila]

try a telescope instead or some "Wundertute" lens like Beroflex 500mm f8.

http://forum.mflenses.com/beroflex-5-8-500mm-t48230,highlight,%2Bberoflex+%2B500mm.html

This very simple lens marketed under many names I think you can recognize it from shape, cheap and pretty good and cost usually nothing fit into your budget.

[cgustav]

[luisalegria]

They are quite light actually.
There isn't much inside.

[Lloydy]

The Soligor 400 / 6.3 is another good choice, I haven't used it for moon shots - but I have had some good down to earth images from it. And they can be found cheap enough, I sold a very nice one recently for about £25.

[Aanything]

I'm quite happy with a Makinon reflex 6.7/400: it's nice and compact, and results are usable, imho.
It can be had cheap - I paid around 35 euros for mine - it's light, extremely well built, it focuses close (1:4 macro), and the focus ring usability is above average for a mirror lens.
Here's a moon shot I took with it - handheld, so not at the best of lens' capabilities probably.
2013-08-14_moon_26 by A_Anything, on Flickr
Taken with nex 5r, cropped a bit.

The only "problem" for moonshots with this lens (I mean, with this focal length) is that it could be a bit too wide, depending on the resolution of the file you need to output.

[marcusBMG]

some examples here
http://forum.mflenses.com/show-me-your-moon-shot-t67477.html

and here
http://forum.mflenses.com/mirror-lens-not-good-for-moon-shot-t37252,start,30.html
On the latter page manualFocus G posted a good moon pic taken with a Tamron Nestar 400mm, but I think it needs to be reposted - a lot of pics on old threads seemed to have disappeared into a cyber black hole during a site crash a few months ago.

[kds315*]

How about the russian MTO 1000mm, I saw quite good results and it's very cheap.

[Aanything]

Moon shot with the MC MTO 10/1000:




Cloudy, windy, with a small tripod - so far from ideal conditions. A little PP (contrast, mostly, as the sky was cloudy and hazy), no crop, shot with nex5r.
I'm pretty happy with the result.

[cgustav]

Nice shot Aanything!
just the MC MTO is not in my budget (at least on eBay, around $270-350)

Guys, what about the SOLIGOR TELE-AUTO 400 6.3?

I've seen one with this mount, not sure what mount is this though:

[duckrider]

Mount looks Nikon like.

Mind: 400mm is quite short for moon, choose minimum 500mm and Beroflex and similar are not the worst one for this bargain price.
Thomas

[cooltouch]

That's a Nikon mount. Looks like one of those Y/S adapters, or whatever they were called back then. Kinda like the Tamron Adaptall-2 mount, they offered limited interchangeablility. Anyway, the prong gives it away that it's a Nikon mount. It's pre-AI, though, so your camera must be able to mount pre-AI lenses. When I use an adapter for Nikon on my EOS, there's enough cleaarance where the Pre-AI issue doesn't matter. It only seems to matter if you'll be mounting it on a Nikon.

I consider 400mm to be at just about the bottom end of the range of lenses you want to use to shoot the moon with and have an image that's usable for much of anything in the end. You're almost always going to get better results with a refracttor as opposed to a reflector, mostly because a refractor will provide better contrast, typically.

Those cheapo preset telephotos that used to sell for like $69 back in the 80s are actuallly decent optics. I have a 400mm f/6.3 with a Canon FD T-mount more or less permanently mounted to it (it's stuck and I can't get it loose -- I wonder if a previous owner may have superglued the mount in place). Anyway, I've tried it out with my NEX and it's a pretty decent lens, really. I'm putting mine up on eBay -- hope to get $25 for it, which is about what they sell for there. In fact, you can get the 500 preset for about the same price, and if I were you, I'd get the 500 instead. It's not much bigger than the 400, weight difference is negligible, and the increased image size more than makes up for any small cost difference.

Here's an example of the sort of detail you can expect from a good, sharp 500mm refractor. Data: 10.1mp DSLR, 100% crop, ISO 100, 1/125 second @ f/11. The lens is a T-mount manual aperture Century Precision Optics 500mm f/5.6 Tele Athenar II, built probably in the early 70s. I bought this lens 25 years ago at a flea market. Paid $30. I wouldn't take 10 x that amount today for it.

[asfethan]

Oh my god cooltouch that's awesome result

[Lloydy]

That Soligor mount is Nikon and is a T4 or TX Adaptable mount. If the lens is the same, or similar, to the one I pictured above then it's a decent lens. Almost certainly a Tokina.

http://forum.mflenses.com/t4-adapters-soligor-and-vivitar-interchangeable-t62680.html

https://sites.google.com/site/casualcollectorproject/Home/lenses/t4-for-two

The T4 and TX adapters are very similar and can be made to interchange, but it's far better to get the right one. I recently about $10 for a Pentax PK - TX mount from ebay.

[WNG555]

+2 CoolTouch, that's a fantastic lunar capture. So much detail.

I have a Vivitar (Komine) 400mm f/5.6 with OM mount for my Sony E-mount. With an APS-C sensor, it works out to 600mm.
Still learning to achieve results like yours.

But I read the later Tokina versions of this lens are better. Another to research.

[woodrim]

I've been looking for a 400mm and just today bought a Novoflex 5.6/400.

[cgustav]

Great pic cooltouch!

Also, in the meantime I changed my habits as now I'm mostly shooting with the A6000.
So, I understand I should look for a 500mm what about the Vivitar 500 f/8?

[Lloydy]

[ManualFocus-G]

This is the old shot from my Nesstar 400/6.9:



The key to moon shots is often the post processing! Drag back the highlights and sharpen the image and things will look a lot better, regardless of the lens

[cgustav]

So I've spot two lenses (within my budget/max $100), I'd love to hear from you guys which one might work better (if any!)
Tamron 400mm f/6.9
Vivitar Series 500mm f/8 (V-500-PRE)

edit: not sure, but I guess those two lenses are just kind of cheap, regular new lenses on the market. It seems they are around on Amazon as well, so I think this is no good use.

[woodrim]

[ManualFocus-G]

[cgustav]

That's a nice shot ManualFocus-G!

I can probably get the Tamron, it's almost within my budget.

[cooltouch]

Yes, a nice shot, Graham. Still good detail with a 400mm. But if it were a 300mm, much of the detail would be lost. Besides the PP you mention, I've determined that the best time to shoot a full moon is when it's about a day past full. When it's full, shadows are minimal and everything looks just sort of flat. But a bit past full, and the shadows are beginning to grow, which gives more detail to the image.

Also, a common mistake that people make when they take pics of the moon is to expose for it as if it were a night shot. They look at their photos afterward and all they have are white spots against a black background. True, it's night, but the moon is reflecting the sun. And with its albedo, it's reflecting it at about two stops off of 18% gray using the sunny f/16 rule, or an exposure of 1/125 @ f/8 @ ISO 100. Actually, I prefer shooting 1 stop off 18% gray or f/11. It's a bit darker that way, but gives more detail. That full moon shot of mine above was taken at f/11.

[visualopsins]

24 hours before full moon may be best time.