Frustrating moon shots!

[PerfectlyFlawed]

Ok, ive taken several different shots on different settings.
Watched Youtube tutorials ( most of them make it look way to complicating )
Asked on another "moon"related thread here and got shot down for being a noob.

When i take pics of the moon...i get white blurry blobs.. or extremely distant shots...nothing up close and detailed like i want. I have seen this done with less than what i have for gear...and its frustrating! lol

Can ANYONE whos taken moon shots help me out? Tips, tricks, settings advice etc?

I'd be using my 55-200mm most likely ( unless the 18-55mm would be better).. and no Tripod. ( dont have one YET)

ANY help would be greatly appreciated...

Example.

 

[Natural_Disaster]

I seem to remember someone else posting a pretty good detailed moon shot and listed they used the 55-200 lens on their Nikon D5000...well i have the same thing and my pics turn out about like yours..actually worse...Ill see if i can find one to post here real fast....

 

[JeffieLove]

I think (and keep in mind, I'm still a noob) not having the tripod is really going to make it difficult... Unless you have something to stabilize your camera on, then you are going to get some amount of motion blur :/

Best I can do for ya Sorry!

 

[Natural_Disaster]

 

[thebeatles]

I haven't really taken moon shots before but I am pretty sure you need to use a fast shutter speed. That may be why it looks like a blurry blob, because the moon is extremely overexposed/blown out due to too slow a shutter speed and just looks like a glowing orb. If you shot at 200mm and made sure your shutter speed was pretty fast it may work out better. Obviously you will need to adjust your ISO and aperture to match your shutter speed accordingly to achieve the "right" exposure. Sorry I'm not giving you any specific numbers, I am just not that experienced with moon shot specifics. I suppose you can think of it this way; The light we see illuminating the moon is that of the sun and to properly see those details, craters, shadows, etc., you will need to adjust your setting as though you were shooting something illuminated by sunlight.

 

[Natural_Disaster]

Should we at least be able to get a little detail when we focus in though?

 

[thebeatles]

Should we at least be able to get a little detail when we focus in though?

Not unless the photo is correctly exposed. You can't get detail when anything is super blown out/overexposed, whether the subject is a moon or anything else.

His shot settings were:
ISO 800
Shutter speed 1/3rd sec.
Aperture f/5.6

Imagine what a picture would look like if you used those settings on a sunny day. I know it's hard to think of it that way since you are shooting at nighttime, but the light on the surface of the moon is much, much brighter than the light we see illuminating things on earth.

 

[Natural_Disaster]

That does make sense....Wish it wasn't getting ready to snow..Id go out and play some more lol.

 

[thebeatles]

That does make sense....Wish it wasn't getting ready to snow..Id go out and play some more lol.

Yeah, I hear you! Post some photos when you try this out. :thumbup: I would try moon shots but 85mm is just not enough.

 

[mrmacedonian]

I would say the tripod is the essential piece you're missing. I've only tried to take shots of the moon once after reading a thread on here and the result I got is below. That's cropped otherwise unedited. I'm pretty sure its the tripod that will make or break your shot when it comes to shutter speeds that slow. Also put your camera on a short timer if you don't have a trigger release. I don't have one yet and I just put it on a 3s countdown timer when I'm worried about vibration from pressing the shutter.

 

[JeffieLove]

That does make sense....Wish it wasn't getting ready to snow..Id go out and play some more lol.

Yeah, I hear you! Post some photos when you try this out. :thumbup: I would try moon shots but 85mm is just not enough.

same here, except all I have is 55 :/ lol...

I haven't been able to get a 55-200 yet... It's coming... I'm not sure what my next purchase will be... new lens or better tripod .... Hmmm.. decisions decisions...

 

[thebeatles]

That does make sense....Wish it wasn't getting ready to snow..Id go out and play some more lol.

Yeah, I hear you! Post some photos when you try this out. :thumbup: I would try moon shots but 85mm is just not enough.

same here, except all I have is 55 :/ lol...

I haven't been able to get a 55-200 yet... It's coming... I'm not sure what my next purchase will be... new lens or better tripod .... Hmmm.. decisions decisions...

Get the tripod!

 

[mrmacedonian]

I'm unsure why some photos are getting uploaded to Flickr without EXIF data, in any case here it is:

Camera: Canon 50D
Exposure: .008s (1/125)
Aperture: f/8.0
Focal Length: 270mm
ISO Speed: 100
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Off, Did not fire

Try resting it on top of a car with like a bean bag with those settings and see if you can get results you like more. Remember the timer on the shutter.

 

[JeffieLove]

I'm unsure why some photos are getting uploaded to Flickr without EXIF data, in any case here it is:

Camera: Canon EOS 50D Exposure: 0.008 sec (1/125) Aperture: f/8.0 Focal Length: 270 mm ISO Speed: 100 Exposure Bias: 0 EV Flash: Off, Did not fire
That's off the photo's flickr page so I'm not quite sure maybe its just my Firefox AddOn that's not getting them for me.

nope... mine says, "No Exif"... and I use chrome and (finally) found a good viewer... If you asked me what it is... I have no idea :/ I just googled it and downloaded one lol

 

[keith foster]

This is as good as I have been able to get with my 55-250 and a tripod. It was -8 that night and I didn't stay around for many more attempts.

I got this one this weekend.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4053/4395210453_0ea2043f7d_b.jpg

I like the trees in it so that it has a perspective and the color variations.
Not works of art but good enough for outhouse art for sure. lol