D600 Full Wolf Moon

Yep, the January full moon is called the Full Wolf Moon, at least so the Farmers' Almanac says. You can reference my older Full Moon Names - The Farmers' Almanac article for the full moon names throughout the year.

A while back, I was pondering the topic of full frame vs. APS for telephoto photography. Quite often I read that full frame fits landscape photography, portrait photography, but not really sports or wildlife photography where magnification is important. Supposedly, the crop factor is a reason to stick with APS. The 1.5x or 1.6x magnification factor gives the crop sensor a head start.

However, that is one situation where pixel count matters too. For example moving from a 10 megapixel D200 to 24 megapixel D600, is the crop factor really all that relevant or can one simply crop the high resolution image and get the crop factor after the fact? I think so!

Theory is one thing, practice is another. Tonight happened to be the night to try it all out without math and for real. Yes, I had to pick a winter night with 8°F outside to make it more fun. It was a great clear night with beautiful clear sky full of stars and, well, the moon!

I headed out with the same set up I used with the D200 a while back, just with the D600 this time around, a 1.4x Kenko tele-extender, and the Nikkor 80 - 400mm zoom lens.

Aside for crop factor test I though I would give the live view and a contrast based focusing a shot to compare with my previous attempts using phase detection focus, or eye based manual focus. I will tell you right here that the second part seemed to fail miserably but I tried it anyway. With the black sky taking most of the frame, the preview on the LCD was showing the moon completely blown out with no detail despite the proper exposure being set. When I zoomed in, the LCD was just a glaring blob of white. Yet, focusing seemed to do something, and do something meaningful. But before I render a verdict on that one, more tests are needed. Check back someday.

D600 Full Wolf Moon

This first photo is a 100% crop from the captured frame, no resizing. And no, I did not let the moon escape through the corner, I just did not crop a moon photo like that before and wanted to do something different this time

D200 Full Wolf Moon

This second photo is a 100% crop from an older APS-C sized DX D200, no resizing.

So what do you think? Well, back to math, from 10 megapixels to 24 megapixel, the vertical lines change from 2,592 to 4,016. That is 1.55x more. Pretty close to that lost 1.5x magnification, isn't it?

Have fun shooting the moon!

Equipment used:

• Nikon D600
• Nikon 80-400mm
• Kenko 1.4x PRO 300 Teleconverter
• Manfrotto tripod (055MF3) and head (496RC2)
• No remote release used, just a 5s times and a 3s exposure delay setting

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