As somebody who does a fair share of full-moon photography with the
300mm lenses on 4/3 bodies, I'll say that the 300/4.5 is certainly up
to the challenge, with the exception of the chromatic aberration. I
prefer to use the Tokina AT-X 100-300/4 zoom instead. In both cases,
my normal aperture is F5.6 or F8. With the Zuiko, F8 is needed to
clean up the color fringing, but with Lightroom, I'm OK with the F5.6
shots as the correction in Lightroom does a pretty good job.
Live-view with magnification is the key to survival. The focus screen
isn't going to be accurate enough in these conditions and you'll want
to use live-view with the maximum magnification to get the focus point
dialed in.
One issue, that is certainly a problem with the earlier generations of
the Panasonic sensors as found in the DMC-L1, E-330 and then in the
E-3, is the low ISO of live-view. It's really hard to find things in
the dark bright enough to focus on. It's a rare star that even shows
up. So, if you are trying to pre-focus on something ahead of time, I
find that a radio tower beacon light in the far distance is usually a
good choice. After the lens and camera have temperature stabilized to
the outside air, I get things focused up and then tape the lens
focus/zoom rings in place. After a while, I will verify as
temperatures change and I get some focus drift.
The one lesson I've learned is to shoot like your survival depends on
it. Don't just take one or two, but whack them out as fast as you can.
I would say that maybe one out of ten will be good enough to use.
The other lesson I've learned is to practice, practice, practice. You
should have the camera pre-configured for this and saved in one of the
stored settings.
Oh, and a flashlight. A flashlight is sooooo important.
AG
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