How to photograph the moon?

[machineman9]

There was a really bright moon out last night and I tried to take some photos of it, but they all seemed to come out a bit wrong.

Here are some examples:














Camera settings used:

First: 30 seconds shutter, ISO 100, f/5.6
Second: 2 seconds shutter, ISO 100, f/5.6
Third: 1/8th second shutter, ISO 400, f/5.6 (This was night-shooting mode)

All had a 2 or 10 second pause to minimise shake. All were looking out through an open window. It is with a 300mm lens on a tripod. I used the lens hood as well. Not sure if that would make a difference for this kind of shooting though.



For the first one I think that is just because some clouds moved into the way, the second I'm not sure about and the third had the best visual set up in the sky but it was auto settings so I think maybe that could be to blame, somewhat. I dislike using auto-settings, it seems to mostly blur the images... Though my settings aren't always much better it seems.


Any thoughts on what went wrong and how to sort it? Cheers

[Ravang]

Try using these settings:

f-stop: f/4.8
Exposure time: 1/500 sec.
ISO: 200

[machineman9]

Hmm, an exposure time that small?

Mine only goes to f/5.6 so I'll have to use that. Unfortunately I have a good few hours before the sun even starts to go down, but I can certainly try when that does happen.

Edit: Nope, it can go down to f/4.0. Okay, I shall give it a try when I can. Cheers.

[Rifleman]

If you have options on metering (spot, multi-point, matrix, etc), use the smallest area (spot) that you can aim towards the brightest light of the moon and make that your starting point for bracketing the exposure......and use a good steady tripod.....

[machineman9]

Well my tripod isn't the steadiest, but it does suffice.

So the metering is how it gets the exposure, right? So yeh, I want something not to evaluate the entire sky but just the centre, the moon? Like spot, as you said.


Also, should focusing be set to auto, or should I just use infinite?

[a1]

I have asked this before and it is much simpler than you thought.


http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb2 ... 1231623740

[machineman9]

Ah nice. Yeah, it's getting a bit dark now... Give it a few hours and I will hopefully have some photos.

[beaky]

Remember- that light coming off the Moon is sunlight. Past half-phase, you will have so much light your settings will be similar to daytime settings. It's also very hard to capture detail of a nearly-full Moon without a filter of some kind.
also,when you're looking at the Moon anywhere near lunar midday, the shadows are short, so there's less detail to see, anyway.
Shooting a crescent Moon yields some very dramatic shadow effects, and if you're lucky you might also get some detail in the shaded area, due to "earthglow" (bluish light reflected off the Earth).

[machineman9]

Oooh that sounds interesting. Well it is about half past 7 so I'll be sticking my head out the window every now and then to see if I can get a clear shot.

[BigTruck]

Here's what I got at these settings with my Sony a200....



f/6.3

Exposure 1/125

ISO 400

Focal 200mm

Max Aperture 5.31

Did this last year....I believe I used flash to prevent blowout

[Rifleman]

Here's what I got at these settings with my Sony a200....



Aperture = f/6.3

Shutter speed = 1/125

ISO 400

Focal Length = 200mm

Max Aperture 5.31  ? ? ?

Did this last year....I believe I used flash to prevent blowout

So which aperture setting did you use....the 5.31 or the 6.3 ?

[BigTruck]

[quote][quote]Here's what I got at these settings with my Sony a200....



Aperture = f/6.3

Shutter speed = 1/125

ISO 400

Focal Length = 200mm

Max Aperture 5.31