Almost Enough Luck

[JimFox]

I was at the park to run yesterday afternoon and I had brought my Nikon D850 and Tamron 150-600mm to capture the moon as I am working on a project to capture the moon in all of it's phases. Well, I have been doing some pre-sunset "blue" moon shots in addition, so as I was shooting the moon I saw this object shooting into the scene. I wasn't sure what kind of plane it was but it was heading towards the moon, so I kept shooting as it raced across the sky. I have always been envious of those guys who have gotten the jet plane flying across the moon, and for a few seconds my heart leaped thinking it might happen for me.... but no... I was lucky to get this, but not quite lucky enough to have it fly right across the face of the moon. And it wasn't a jet but a small single engine plane.... but hey... I still felt pretty jazzed by the whole situation.

When I opened this up back at home on my computer, I couldn't believe that the whole image was sharp. I thought for sure either the moon was going to be a bit out of focus or the plane, but both the plane and the moon are in focus. Now that's pretty lucky...

Nikon D850
Tamron 150-600mm @600mm
f8
1/1250th
Single Image

All comments are welcome,

Jim

 

[Ben Egbert]

Good show, and those wispy clouds help

 

[AlanLichty]

Sharp in this case comes from your 1/1250s shutter speed. I have been using auto ISO so I can lock down speed and f/stops with handheld panning. Certainly closer to that magic shot than anything I have done

 

[JimFox]

Good show, and those wispy clouds help

Thanks Ben, the clouds were a nice touch.

 

[JimFox]

Sharp in this case comes from your 1/1250s shutter speed. I have been using auto ISO so I can lock down speed and f/stops with handheld panning. Certainly closer to that magic shot than anything I have done

For sure I needed the 1/1250th to prevent motion blur on the plane, but shooting at 600mm and at f8? It's usually a lack of DOF is the problem when I have shot the moon at such a long focal length, where the trees for example would be out of focus when I focused on the moon, or the moon would be out of focus if I focused on the trees. So I was happily surprised when both the plane and the moon was in focus.

Now it must be that the plane is much further away then when I would typically do it as the moon was rising behind some trees or rocks. So in this case the plane falls into the Hyperfocal distance. But I was just surprised that it was.

 

[Aaron Macomber]

Cool photo! The Tamron does indeed look pretty sharp, especially for a handheld shot!

 

[rfkiii]

Great shot.

For sure I needed the 1/1250th to prevent motion blur on the plane, but shooting at 600mm and at f8? It's usually a lack of DOF is the problem when I have shot the moon at such a long focal length

Since both objects seem to be at infinity even for 600mm, I might be wrong but I would expect both to be in focus DoF-wise.

 

[Jim Dockery]

Nice capture, like Ben said the clouds help lend interest.

 

[Jameel Hyder]

Nice. Better to have some luck than not.

 

[JimFox]

Cool photo! The Tamron does indeed look pretty sharp, especially for a handheld shot!

Thanks Aaron! It is a very sharp lens.

 

[JimFox]

Great shot.



Since both objects seem to be at infinity even for 600mm, I might be wrong but I would expect both to be in focus DoF-wise.

Thanks Rick!

It still has me scratching my head a bit. I am glad that they are both in focus, perhaps it is because I haven't used the 600mm in this situation really before.

 

[JimFox]

Nice capture, like Ben said the clouds help lend interest.

I wasn't totally happy with the clouds at the time as I was trying to get clean captures of the moon and the clouds will cause the surface of the moon not to be sharp. But for this with the plane, I think you and Ben are right, the clouds really add a nice element to this.

 

[Alisa]

Thats a cool image even if the plane isn't flying across the moon. That moon though! WOW great shot.