Earlier this month the Moon and Jupiter were having a chariot race across the night sky. I got out my Fujifilm X-T2 and the XF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 R LM OIS WR to see if I could capture both the Moon and Jupiter in the same image. I added the XF 1.4x TC WR teleconverter with the idea of capturing just the moon as large as I could. And then backed off a bit to see if I could get both objects into the same frame.
To shoot a full or nearly full moon you need to use manual mode as any exposure meter will more than likely try to over expose all that black space surrounding the Moon. Getting the exposure right for the Moon, in this case F8 1/125sec ISO 400, means that any other objects are just too dim to be picked up.
Luckily for me Jupiter was bright enough to just be seen in the image if I backed off from full zoom. The distance between the Moon and Jupiter looked very close but as you zoom in the gap got pretty big. You may need to click on the image to make it larger enough to see Jupiter but it is there.
I was pretty happy that I was able to get both objects into the view but the image held a surprise.
If you look at this image you will see that there are a lot of stars (and maybe a little noise) in the image. I moved the exposure up by 3.5 stops in lightroom and discovered that the image was full of stars. I did have to do an adjustment brush on the moon to bring down the exposure by the 3.5 stops so it wasn’t completely blown out. The XF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 R LM OIS WR lens picked up a lot of starlight!
Pushing my luck I took a shot just of Jupiter then with a crop to 1600×1600 and another overexposure by 3.5 stops brought in not only starlight but the light of three of Jupiter’s moons.
While most suggest using a wide angled lens at F2.8 with an 1600 ISO and a 30 second exposure for night photography, you sure can pick up a lot of stars with a telephoto lens and a short exposure time. Note: all images were shot hand held which is pretty impressive but with the 1/125 exposure with the VR turned on the images were sharp. The XF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 R LM OIS WR is a spectacular lens.
Images shot with Fujifilm X-T2 and the Fujinon XF100-400mmF4.5-5.6 R LM OIS WR
Hi Jim.
Congratulations for your great photos and article. I also tried to photograph the Moon with the XF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 R LM OIS WR plus the XF 2x TC WR teleconverter on a Fujifilm X-T10. I think the results were quite satisfactory. If you like to see them please check my Instagram
https://instagram.com/p/BTztmh_lUFP/
https://instagram.com/p/BSpEDnBFfuC/
https://instagram.com/p/BQljquAlrBE/
or take a look at my 500px profile for the full resolution
https://500px.com/aldogusmao
The RAWs were processed with Iridient Developer. I will be very grateful for any comments or advice you could give me.