Questions about shooting the moon

[afrikaner07]

Hey Guys and Gals,
This is a rather hasty post, so forgive me if this topic has been covered extensively before. Its a great night and the moon is full, or as close to full as I can tell. I tried to take some pictures of the moon, but all I got was a white light. Any tips on what I should do to take a good moon shot. I am sure that I am limited by my Canon Powershot S5 IS, but its all I have. Thank you for your help.
Cheers,
Johan

[srdanz]

You're not limited by it, just by its ability to meter off the small dot in the sky. Try manual settings, ISO 100, f/16, 1/125.

[henryp]

The quantity of light striking the moon is full sun, like Noon on a cloudless day here on Earth. You can use the "sunny-16" rule for your exposure. Set your ISO to (for example) 125 and your camera to f/16 and 1/125th sec. Depth of field isn't an issue, after all. Once you've picked an ISO, your exposure follows from that.

[afrikaner07]

I will try your tips tonight if the clouds permit me. Thank you for your advice, I appreciate it.
Cheers

[KeithAlanK]

You might like the results of shooting the moon before the sun sets, because when you expose correctly to get crater detail, the sky will be a rich dark blue instead of black.

[afrikaner07]

how do you mess with the exposure to get the crater detail, do you just lower the exposure? I have taken some shots while the sun was setting, and I could get far more crater detail. i was just hoping I could do that in the evening as well. thanks for the help.

[lightsright]

I once read in an astronomy book that the best time to view the moon with telescope/binoculars was when the moon is half-full. (Or half empty, depending on your personality.) That way, you are getting light falling across the surface and therefore, details are highlighted/exposed. I know it's not a full moon shot, but that may be the way to go for more interesting texture.

[afrikaner07]

thanks, i will give all your advice a try tonight, thanks (cept for the half moon idea...since tonight wont be a half moon i'll try it when it is a half moon)

[JbVenable]

i was also taking pics last night but having a film camera I wont have any idea on the results for a while. But Ive had some good pics with half full moon. Whats the lens of choice for moon pics?

[LarrySmith]

Use a steady tripod out of the wind.

Use Mirror lock-up if you have it to eliminate mirror slap vibration.

Use a remote release if you have it to avoid shaking the camera/lens when tripping the shutter.

Lens selection depends on your desired outcome. If you want to fill the frame with the moon, then the longest lens you have and then add teleconverters(TC). I once shot a half moon with a 500mm lens with stacked TC's 2-1.4x + 2-2x and the moon just fit in the frame of a 1/3x crop body. The hardest part was the slow shutter speed created by the stacked TC's so I bumped the ISO up.

Also, remember the Earth is rotating so the image of the moon in the viewfinder will move too. Therefore, you have to watch the shutter speed so it does not get too slow. Magnified as I did above, the moon would move across the viewfinder very fast to I had to lock the lens down on the tripod ahead of the moon so everthing could settle down by the time the moon was in the viewfinder.

If you are shooting digital, shoot in RAW mode so you can correct the white balance. If you shoot from inside a city, you will most likely get a yellow cast to the black sky and moon.

Most importantly - have fun doing it.

Larry

[corazondedios]

ok, I'm no expert at all, but I was happy with the hand held shots that I got two nights ago.

I have no idea why it worked, but I set the f stop to 8, and then I set the shutter speed at about 1/125 all the way to 1/350. I even did one at 1/450 for reasons unknown to me. I just HAVE to push the limits to see what happens. Anyway, I got some decent shots of the moon, where the craters and shading were definitely perceptible. I did it with three cameras -- I used a Canon S3 IS with a 12x zoom, plus a 1.5 X telephoto lens, a Konica Minolta Z3 with a 3x zoom, and a Samsung Pro 815 with a 15x zoom and no antishake. Oddly enough, the Samsung came out with the best pictures, probably due to my steady hand and its 8.2 megapixels.

Maybe if I used a tripod I would have got one of those cool shots with the craters so crisp and detailed almost like looking through a telescope --
which brings up the next thing --

is there an adapter that one can use to attach one's camera to a telescope and photograph it? I saw a nifty "telescope" lens for a Canon AE program on ebay that sold for around $170 or something, including shipping, but I did not even put a bid on it.

You can go to my deviantart account (in sig below) and check out the full moon shots. Those were just quick, handheld shots taken from the front porch.

You can check out the settings if you download the pics and view them in Photoshop. The data is still in the metafile.

Make: SAMSUNG TECHWIN
8.2 megapixel
Model: Pro 815 -- 15x optical zoom on camera
Shutter Speed: 10/2000 second
F Number: F/8.0
Focal Length: 105 mm
ISO Speed: 100
unsharp mask in photoshop (not sure of settings)


Additional lens: 1.5 telephoto
6.1 megapixel
Model: Canon PowerShot S3 IS 12x optical zoom on camera, plus the 1.5 telephoto lens
Shutter Speed: 1/125 second
F Number: F/8.0
Focal Length: 72 mm
sharpened in photoshop (naaaaaa! your kidding me! that doesn't look oversharpened!)


Make: KONICA MINOLTA
Model: DiMAGE Z3 -- 12x optical zoom on camera, plus 3x zoom telephoto lens
5 megapixel
Shutter Speed: 1/200 second
F Number: F/8.0
Focal Length: 69 mm
ISO Speed: 100

Photoshop could not help this shot. it's too soft and dog ugly -- but damn it would be a great backround for a grade B horror movie title!


Hope this helps.

[JbVenable]

moon looks the same tonite. couldnt get excited about it. a couple pics and i quit..

[trahanw]

This is really neet shots of the moon. Thanks for the tips. I'll try tonight. Great Pics

[srdanz]

These moon shots forced me to take out my moon 'lens'.

Here is the untouched original (shot in raw, default ACR conversion, resize without any sharpening) and a bit of PP (curves in Lab Color mode - lightness only, resize, and smart sharpen 200/0.3/1).

[trahanw]

OK, When you say moon lens are you talking about 200m-500m. Real new to photgraphy.