full moon settings

[stevet1]

What full moon settings would you use?
I read one photographer recently who said that his settings would be:

When using a lens with a focal length (or equivalent) of 600mm or longer:
ISO: 800
Aperture: 6.7 (or close)
Shutter speed: (somewhere between) 1/1250 -1/2500 second

The reason for the high shutter speed is that "moon reflects a bunch of light from the sun."
"If a camera is set to "AUTO" setting, it will "see" all of the darkness (black) of space and try to make it exposed to halfway between black and white -- therefore, increasing the exposure (by a lot!)," he said.
"This increase in exposure will, in turn, wash out ALL features on the moon, and the resulting image will only show a (totally) white circle."

He is using a micro two-thirds camera, so I don't know if that makes a difference with respect to the ISO and all.

He also suggests using monochrome (at least in the post processing).
"As the lunar soil (regolith) is a light, greyish-brown color, it is not very photogenic, and it doesn't show much contrast between brightly lit areas and shadows," he said. This then helps him tweak the contrast and brightness, if needed."

Steve Thomas

 

[jaomul]

This one was iso 1/800 f8 and iso 280, take a spot meter off the moon and tweak from there, I likely took down exposure in pp

 

[jaomul]

I'm not sure why you'd use 1/2500 and iso 800 when it can be taken slower, albeit it is moving

 

[Dacaur]

On a very slow moving thing like the moon, I would never go above 1/500 unlessI am already at iso 100. Like jaomul said, it's silly to reduce quality with iso800 while using a super fast shutter speed when it's not needed....
As for aperature, I would use something between f8 and f11, unless you have already tested your particular lense to see what aperature is sharpest at infinity, then use that.

 

[Dao]

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Technical info (Ref: Exposure value - Wikipedia)

Full moon EV is 15 (Exposure Value = 15) (Reference)

Based on this EV Table, for EV15, ISO100 and aperture f/8, the shutter speed is 1/500

And that is kind of like the base line. It is possible that it maybe different in terms of f stop goes. But at least you can based on this.

So setup your camera to spot metering, point it to the full moon with ISO 100 and f/8 in Aperture Priority mode. If the camera suggest the shutter speed between 1/250 to 1/500, you are not too far off. (1 stop difference)

Also, use a tripod if you have one. Otherwise, bump the ISO up to increase the shutter speed to avoid blur due to camera shake.


Edit:
Also, moon is far away from us, so aperture can be f/whatever. Therefore, use the best aperture for your lens at a particular focal length and adjust the shutter speed accordingly. For a regular consumer grade lens like the one I have Canon EF 70-300mm IS lens, the max aperture at 300mm is f/5.6. So I will stop down to f/7.1 to f/8 for sharper photos.

 

[stevet1]

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Technical info (Ref: Exposure value - Wikipedia)

Full moon EV is 15 (Exposure Value = 15) (Reference)

Based on this EV Table, for EV15, ISO100 and aperture f/8, the shutter speed is 1/500

And that is kind of like the base line. It is possible that it maybe different in terms of f stop goes. But at least you can based on this.

So setup your camera to spot metering, point it to the full moon with ISO 100 and f/8 in Aperture Priority mode. If the camera suggest the shutter speed between 1/250 to 1/500, you are not too far off. (1 stop difference)

Also, use a tripod if you have one. Otherwise, bump the ISO up to increase the shutter speed to avoid camera shake.


Edit:
Also, moon is far away from us, so aperture can be f/whatever. Therefore, use the best aperture for your lens at a particular focal length and adjust the shutter speed accordingly. For a regular consumer grade lens like the one I have Canon EF 70-300mm IS lens, the max aperture at 300mm is f/5.6. So I will stop down to f/7.1 to f/8 for sharper photos.

Dao,

Thank you. Those tables help quite a bit.

Steve Thomas

 

[SquarePeg]

Harvest moon rising on Friday the 13th! Got to shoot that!

 

[ac12]

On a very slow moving thing like the moon, I would never go above 1/500 unlessI am already at iso 100. Like jaomul said, it's silly to reduce quality with iso800 while using a super fast shutter speed when it's not needed....
As for aperature, I would use something between f8 and f11, unless you have already tested your particular lense to see what aperature is sharpest at infinity, then use that.

The moon maybe relatively slow moving, but when you use a LONG lens, you have to compensate for that.

If I shoot with a FF + 500mm (10x magnification), hand-held, I will shoot at 1/1,000.
If I shoot with a m4/3 + 500mm (20x magnification), hand-held, I will shoot at 1/2,000 sec.

At that level of magnification, I consider a tripod mandatory.
With the stability of a tripod, you can lower the shutter speed.

 

[Strodav]

There is some very good advice in the replies above, but just want to add, don't think there is one "right" setting or technique. Have some fun and play with the settings. Yes, a tripod and remote release (or camera timer) will get you more keepers (might want to turn off VR on a tripod), but you can get away handheld by using good technique and holding down the shutter button in continuous shooting mode. The first and last shots tend to suffer from camera shake, but a couple in the middle should be sharp with VR. You will be surprised on how well this technique works allowing for slower shutter speeds so higher f stops and/or lower ISO. Pick a starting shutter speed, aperture, and ISO, AF mode, metering mode, and take a shot and look at it on the LCD monitor along with the histogram and adjust from there. You will get away with a higher ISO as the noise shows up in the shadows that you won't see it in the black sky and the moon is bright, so you shouldn't see a lot of noise there unless you really crank up the ISO, so you've got a lot of latitude. Try manual as well as AF. Take some shots in Live View, which uses contrast detection AF, as well as through the view finder, which uses phase detection AF. This is a slow moving event, so you a lot of time to try different things and see what works best for you and your gear.

The first time I shot the moon, I was able to take a break go inside and download some starting images into LightRoom to get some ideas on what to change, then went back out and took some more shots. Once you do this a couple of times you will feel more confident in taking shots just as the moon rises over your favorite foregrounds. Another neat thing is double or triple exposures as the moon moves through the sky, or do something similar in PhotoShop.

 

[beagle100]

What full moon settings would you use?
I read one photographer recently who said that his settings would be:

When using a lens with a focal length (or equivalent) of 600mm or longer:
ISO: 800
Aperture: 6.7 (or close)
Shutter speed: (somewhere between) 1/1250 -1/2500 second

The reason for the high shutter speed is that "moon reflects a bunch of light from the sun."
"If a camera is set to "AUTO" setting, it will "see" all of the darkness (black) of space and try to make it exposed to halfway between black and white -- therefore, increasing the exposure (by a lot!)," he said.
"This increase in exposure will, in turn, wash out ALL features on the moon, and the resulting image will only show a (totally) white circle."

He is using a micro two-thirds camera, so I don't know if that makes a difference with respect to the ISO and all.

He also suggests using monochrome (at least in the post processing).
"As the lunar soil (regolith) is a light, greyish-brown color, it is not very photogenic, and it doesn't show much contrast between brightly lit areas and shadows," he said. This then helps him tweak the contrast and brightness, if needed."

Steve Thomas

not full but
f9 1/160 ISO 100

Untitled by c w, on Flickr

 

[stevet1]

not full but
f9 1/160 ISO 100

Untitled by c w, on Flickr

That's a nice photo.

Steve Thomas

 

[TCampbell]

I can take you through some math regarding shutter speed. What you really want to know is how far the moon will travel on your camera sensor -- in pixels -- during the exposure.

The Earth spins at roughly 15 arc-seconds per second (15.041). But since the Moon is orbiting the Earth, and in the same direction that the Earth spins, the Moon appears to be moving a bit slower. The lunar tracking rate is only 14.685 arc-seconds per second.

I don't know what camera/sensor is being used for this shot, so I'll just make up a sensor.

Suppose you have an APS-C sensor camera (crop factor = 1.5x) and suppose the sensor is roughly 6000 x 4000 pixels (24MP). You mentioned a 600mm lens, so I'll go with that.

If you use an angular field of view calculator (you can find online calculators) this works out to 2.29° in the wide direction.

You need to convert 2.29° into arc-seconds since the motion of the moon is in arc-seconds. To do that multiply by 60 to convert to arc-minutes, then multiply that result by 60 again to get to arc-seconds -- or just multiply by 3600 (since 60 x 60 = 3600).

2.29 x 3600 = 8244 This is the angular field of view in the wide dimension expressed in arc-seconds.

Divide that by the sensor resolution. I made up the value of 6000 x 4000. So it's 6000 in the wide dimension. 8244 ÷ 6000 = 1.34. This is the arc-seconds per pixel ... for that camera with a 600mm lens.

The moon is moving at 14.685 arc-seconds per second. This means if we took an exposure that lasts 1 full seconds, it will move 14.685 arc-seconds. Our sensor has a pixel pitch of 1.34 arc-seconds per pixel using the 600mm lens so that mean works out to 14.685 ÷ 1.34 = 10.69. In other words a 1-second exposure would allow the moon to move 10.69 pixels during the exposure.

But use a shutter speed of merely 1/100th second and we get to divide 10.69 by 100 ... now the Moon only moves .107 pixels during the 1/100th sec exposure.

I don't think you will see any blurring caused by a lack of tracking if the Moon only moves roughly 1/10th of a pixel.




Regarding exposures... the moon can be properly exposed using the "Loony 11" rule which says that at f/11 you can get a correct exposure of the moon by setting the shutter speed to the inverse of the ISO. You don't have to use f/11 ... you can trade stops of aperture for stops of shutter speed. I don't boost ISO when shooting the moon ... it really doesn't need it.

But there is one more aspect ... called atmospheric extinction. This is the notion that some light is being extinguished by the atmosphere.

In a typical (non-Lunar) exposure, your subject isn't very far away ... just a few feet or even many feet. But usually the subject isn't miles and miles away. When shooting the Moon, you have to shoot through the entire atmosphere ... miles and miles and miles of it. Particles in the air absorb and scatter the light causing the moon to appear slightly dimmer than it would appear if we didn't have an atmosphere.

The transparency of the air (dust, smog, moisture, etc.) will affect the exposure. If the moon were straight above your head at the zenith, then you are shooting through 1x air-mass of the atmosphere. But if the moon is near the horizon you are shooting through significantly more air (possibly more than 5x more air). This means you may need to increase that exposure depending on the conditions.

Mainly you want to make sure you don't have any clipped pixels that were over-saturated with light (easy to do when shooting the moon). Check your histogram to make sure you aren't over-exposing anything.

 

[wfooshee]

Even spot metering, The camera may misread it. Meter, shoot, read the histogram, adjust manually if needed.

The moon is a sunlit object, so it's not "night photography."

 

[petrochemist]

I knew the Looney 11 rule would have been mentioned by now, and Tim's done his usual great job of explaining it & going beyond.
I'll typically use it, or spot meter on the moon with a little EC. The same settings apply for non full moon images which usually give much better results (grazing light on the moon makes the craters far more noticeable).
Shutter speed is rarely a problem shooting the moon even a 900mm equivalent FOV is handholdable at ISO 400:
Supermoon pre-eclipse by Mike Kanssen, on Flickr

It does become a lot more difficult during a total eclipse though, last time (~2-4 am 28th September 2015) I woke up just too late to try a single shot of totality. Clouds have obscured any eclipses I've heard of since.

 

[TCampbell]

I just occasionally shoot the moon ... but using a telescope. But prefer a non-full moon because the shadows created by the sun illuminating the moon from the side give the moon more of a 3D texture. Regardless of full vs. partial phase ... the exposure of the illuminated side will be the same. (You can also massively over-expose the shot to capture the "earth-shine" on the non-illuminate side and then build a composite image with the non-over-exposed illuminated side.) Also notice there are no stars in these shots. Lunar photos require an exposure that is too brief for any stars to show up (if you ever see a photo of a moon that includes stars, it's always a composite image.)

These are shot through my TeleVue NP101is (a 540mm focal length f/5.4 quad-element apochromatic refractor) and a Canon 60Da (APS-C sensor)... EXCEPT I'm also using a TeleVue 2x PowerMate. A PowerMate is TeleVue's version of a tele-centric barlow. This means these images are effectively shot at 1080mm and f/11 (f/10.8):


First Quarter Moon by Tim Campbell, on Flickr


Waxing Crescent Moon by Tim Campbell, on Flickr