Noticed a huge difference in a moon shot I took 3 years apart

I was looking through old photos from 2021 and found a moon picture I took with my old phone. Terrible, just a white blob. Last Tuesday I grabbed a shot with my current camera and a cheap telephoto lens I got off eBay for $40. Same moon phase, same time of night. The difference is insane. Better focus, way more craters visible. Anyone else go back and cringe at old astro photos?

2 comments

2 Comments

wendy62816d agoMost Upvoted

Oh come on, "cringe" is a little dramatic don't you think? It's just a old phone vs. a real camera with a lens, of course there's a difference. You're acting like you discovered fire or something. A cheap telephoto will already beat a phone camera any day of the week, that's not some big revelation. And comparing the same moon phase three years apart, isn't that kind of the bare minimum for a fair comparison? I mean sure, your new shot looks better, but did you really expect a white blob from 2021 to hold up against actual gear?

wendyg4315d ago

Oh, give me a break. The phone camera from three years ago was a flagship model, not some cheapo hand-me-down. And comparing the same moon phase actually makes it harder to show improvement, since a crescent moon is way easier to expose than a full one. That old "white blob" still had detail in the craters if you looked close, it just needed a little editing. Plus, half the "real camera" shots I see on here are just overprocessed garbage with too much sharpening that makes the moon look like a plastic golf ball. So no, I don't think a cheap telephoto automatically wins. The technique matters more than the gear, and this person actually used good technique with the phone too.