I've always struggled technically shooting time lapse of the moon tracking across the sky through a long lens.
What with DSLR mirror slap vibrations causing motion blur and the need to allow at least four seconds between exposures to let the shaking die down, my close up moon time lapse sequences have been a bit of a compromise.
But one of the things about photography in general that I find appealing is the solving of technical problems, and in this case the solution to my long lens vibration issue proved deceptively simple.
All I did was shoot the time lapse with Live View enabled.
This meant that the heavy mirror assembly was permanently up, rather than banging up and down as is the case with 'normal' shooting.
Voila! No vibration and I was able to drop the shooting interval down to two seconds, resulting in a much sharper and smoother final time lapse sequence of this gibbous moon tracking across a darkening blue sky at twilight.
Filename - moon timelapse 07.mp4
Camera - Canon EOS 6D
Lens - 100-400mm zoom @ 400mm
Exposure (start of sequence) - 1/125 sec @ f5.6, ISO100
Exposure (end of sequence) - 1/125 sec @ f5.6, ISO100
Filters - None.
Shooting interval - 2 seconds
Location - Mold, North Wales
This clip - HD 720p, 30fps (4k & 1080p versions available)
Clip duration - 26 seconds
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