Another Moonshot Question

[flashbackpat]

As an amatuer photographer I was curious about what I could do with my Nikon D40x. I only have the kit lens which is 18-55mm. I've tried to photograph the moon before with this camera and all I could get was either total darkness or a white ghost like blob.

Thanks to Astrostu's tutorial I (thank you for such a clearly written, understandable manual) This is the outcome. Cropped version of course.

My question is, is this about the best I could expect out of this particular lens or have I still got a lot to learn?

 

[nickisonfire]

in order to get a better shot you'll probably need to

A) Move the moon closer to you

or the more reasonable:

B) Get a longer lens (55-200mm 75-300mm etc. )

 

[Mgw189]

Size wise yes not going to get any better than that short of 100% crop. Image wise not at all. The image posted is way under exposed.

 

[astrostu]

As an amatuer photographer I was curious about what I could do with my Nikon D40x. I only have the kit lens which is 18-55mm. I've tried to photograph the moon before with this camera and all I could get was either total darkness or a white ghost like blob.

Thanks to Astrostu's tutorial I (thank you for such a clearly written, understandable manual) This is the outcome. Cropped version of course.

My question is, is this about the best I could expect out of this particular lens or have I still got a lot to learn?

Yay! A third "testimonial." Definitely better than darkness or a white blob.

I'm glad that the guide helped, but I agree that it's under-exposed. The peaks of the histogram for JUST the moon part is around 25% grey (for the bright parts) and 4% for the dark parts. You should try increasing your exposure length by about 2-4x and see how it looks.

It also appears to have some significant color noise which I don't think is intrinsic to the sensor. Did you either have it on a very high ISO (shouldn't have if you were following the guide), a low file resolution from the camera (should be shooting in RAW or the highest-quality JPG), or you shrunk the file size with low-quality JPG compression when posting?

Your focus may also have been very slightly off, but it's very difficult to tell with a 55 mm lens (I know from experience).

 

[flashbackpat]

Thank you all for your responses. There are some great teachers here.

Underexposed - yes probably. I had a little difficulty figuring out how to set the shutter speed. Between trying to read the camera manual & the tutorial in the dark & experimenting with the different settings on the camera, I did become quite frustrated and finally gave up on the project.

I did have the Iso at it's lowest setting as the tutorial stated. But I'm not convinced the shutter speed was set correctly. The original picture was shot in high JPG resolution (I didn't think to switch that setting to RAW) but much of the resolution was lost when I cropped the photo. The original picture showed the moon as a white dot the size of a pinhole. Barely even visible.

I also had the camera set up on a tripod, however, I don't own a remote shutter release so focus was probably affected by my hand on the camera during shutter release. Focus was also probably affected by the clouds moving so quickly in front of the moon as the evening was extremely overcast.

I'm excited that I have an answer to my question however. Thank you all again for your input. Knowing that IT CAN be achieved and is not the fault of the camera itself is important. I'll keep trying. Thank you again.

 

[mrich82]

I also had the camera set up on a tripod, however, I don't own a remote shutter release so focus was probably affected by my hand on the camera during shutter release.

I don't have a tripod or a remote, but I was using my railing and the self-timer when I was messing around yesterday and it helped a lot. Set the self-timer to 10 sec if you think you pushing the shutter release is affecting the image.