Stacking 200 moon shots taught me something about focus

I kept getting blurry edges until I realized I was refocusing on the wrong crater each time. Anyone else drop their first 100 frames because of a tiny focus ring shift?

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3 Comments

thomasgonzalez4mo ago

Val's right, a tripod bump blurs the whole shot, not one side. Check your lens alignment.

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morganmartinez4mo ago

Yeah, the "tiny focus ring shift" bit hit home. I was doing a stack of about 50 shots of the moon last winter and kept getting this weird soft look on one side. Turned out I had bumped the tripod leg while switching memory cards. Didn't notice until I zoomed in on the raw files. Spent an hour redoing the whole thing.

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val_shah4mo ago

50 shots for a moon stack seems like overkill to me honestly. I get being thorough but at a certain point you're just asking for Murphy's law to kick in @morganmartinez. Could probably get the same result with 15-20 frames and a quick check between sets instead of burning an hour on a retake. Also soft on one side from a tripod bump? That sounds more like you nudged the focus ring itself not the leg. Tripod bumps usually blur the whole frame not just one edge.

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