Shots not as good as live view

evensteve

Looking for a bit of advice here. I recently acquired a s/h Canon 40D and a 70 300 lens. I went shooting the moon, using the magnified live view function to set up the focus. However, none of the shots that I took, using a variety of aperture and speed settings looked quite as good as the magnified live view image. I am using an ISO setting of 100 and the best quality image (as far as I can tell) setting [L]. The camera is on a tripod. The lens/camera is obviously capable of producing a high quality image, so why can't I capture it?

swingking

Are u using a timer or wired remote to trigger the shutter ?

evensteve

Neither. Just clicking the shutter button

swingking

That would cause blurring. Use the timer on the camera and that means u won't have to press the shutter button at the time of exposure which causes motion blur. You set the timer, push the shutter and there is a slight delay before the shutter is tripped

hbr

evensteve wrote: »

Looking for a bit of advice here. I recently acquired a s/h Canon 40D and a 70 300 lens. I went shooting the moon, using the magnified live view function to set up the focus. However, none of the shots that I took, using a variety of aperture and speed settings looked quite as good as the magnified live view image. I am using an ISO setting of 100 and the best quality image (as far as I can tell) setting [L]. The camera is on a tripod. The lens/camera is obviously capable of producing a high quality image, so why can't I capture it?

This was shot on a Canon 500D with a cheap Sigma 70-300mm lens.
Are your shots better, worse or about the same?

evensteve

The best of them is about the same. The live view image on the display is even better though.moon.JPG
How do you insert an image here?

hbr

evensteve wrote: »

The best of them is about the same. The live view image on the display is even better though.moon.JPG

That's about the best I could get out of that Sigma lens, even after
a bit of sharpening in PP.

Shooting in raw and then viewing the picture on a nice big
high-res monitor is probably as close as you can get to
seeing what the sensor sees at exposure time.

The 3in screen is not going to be quite as good, even you you
zoom in. You can probably see imperfections in the image when
viewing on a bigger screen which are not visible on the smaller
screen.

Autofocus works differently in live view mode. Try using manual
focus to see if it works better. You could also try using the timer
or remote shutter release to reduce camera shake. This is not
all that critical for moon shots because the moon is very bright.
It also moves through the field of view quite quickly at 300mm.

I used a tripod and a wireless shutter release for the shot above.
Shutter speed 1/125s f/10 ISO 100. IIRC, I used live view and
manual focus.

evensteve

Thanks HBR, that sounds like good advise. The skies look to be clear again tonight, so I'll have another go!

enda1

Seeing as the moon is really quite far away, would you not just set the camera to manual focus and the lens to infinity, then use a 5 second timer on the shutter release (if you don't have remote etc.)?

Never done it myself (shoot the moon, stars etc.) but seems logical no?

hbr

enda1 wrote: »

Seeing as the moon is really quite far away, would you not just set the camera to manual focus and the lens to infinity, then use a 5 second timer on the shutter release (if you don't have remote etc.)?

Never done it myself (shoot the moon, stars etc.) but seems logical no?

For all practical purposes, the moon is at infinity. The trouble is, it is not
that easy to find infinity, especially on modern lenses which often have little
or no focus distance markings. evensteve's method of using live view is
quite effective in practice. I find it quite difficult to focus at 300mm when
live view is at maximum zoom. No doubt I would fare better if I wasn't
using a €25 Argos tripod.