Help with shooting the moon!

[Emilyward14]

Hey everyone,
So I am VERY new to the photography world, I got my first DSLR camera about two weeks ago and will be starting a course in January. I have the canon T6 (1300D). I went down to take a few pictures of the super moon that’s out tonight, and after several attempts (37) I gave up. I couldn’t get my camera to get a nice sharp picture, there were all blurred (example of photos attached). Can anyone tell me what I’m doing wrong? I didn’t have my camera on a tripod but I did try and sit it on a bench a few times to keep it steady but it made no difference
I would be super grateful if anyone could help me!!
Many thanks, EmilyView attachment 150300 View attachment 150301 View attachment 150300 View attachment 150301 View attachment 150300 View attachment 150301

 

[zulu42]

Hi welcome to the forum and congrats on your new camera!

Start by finding out what your shutter speeds were on those shots. I think the shutter speed was too slow to be hand held.

 

[Emilyward14]

Hi welcome to the forum and congrats on your new camera!

Start by finding out what your shutter speeds were on those shots. I think the shutter speed was too slow to be hand held.

Thanks so much for your reply- I’m going to attach the photo description so you can know the exact setting. I did try and change it around a lot as I did 37 attempts but nothing changed unfortunately.
Thanks for taking the time to reply to my thread!
Emily

 

[zulu42]

3" That means your shutter was open for 3 seconds, thats way too long to hold perfectly steady. I impressed your shots are that clear!

Your camera was looking out into a dark environment and did everything it could to let in as much light as possible, including opening the shutter for a long time.

As you learn to take control of those settings, you can decide how long the shutter needs to be open. Around 1/125 of a second for hand held.

 

[Emilyward14]

3" That means your shutter was open for 3 seconds, thats way too long to hold perfectly steady. I impressed your shots are that clear!

Your camera was looking out into a dark environment and did everything it could to let in as much light as possible, including opening the shutter for a long time.

As you learn to take control of those settings, you can decide how long the shutter needs to be open. Around 1/125 of a second for hand held.

Ahhh Okay, I get so confused sometimes with all the things you have to learn and remember! It was my first time shooting in the evening so I really had no idea what I was doing haha! It will take me a while I’m sure to get used to all the different modes/settings I’m sure.
Thanks for outlining the problems for me- hopefully I come back with a better photo tomorrow!

 

[zulu42]

Good luck! There is a ton to learn, one thing at a time. You're doing the right thing: start with the image you want to capture, and figure out the technical steps to get it.

In your image, youre trying to capture the dark landscape, requiring long shutter speed, wide open aperture, and high iso. Problem is, the moon is very bright. To properly expose for the moon itself you want much slower [edit: faster!] shutter, smaller aperture opening, lower iso ..... the right combination of those three things.

So you need to decide the right balance in order to capture the elements you want in your image, which has a very high dynamic range between the dark landscape and bright moon.

Good luck and have fun!

 

[Emilyward14]

Good luck! There is a ton to learn, one thing at a time. You're doing the right thing: start with the image you want to capture, and figure out the technical steps to get it.

In your image, youre trying to capture the dark landscape, requiring long shutter speed, wide open aperture, and high iso. Problem is, the moon is very bright. To properly expose for the moon itself you want much slower shutter, smaller aperture opening, lower iso ..... the right combination of those three things.

So you need to decide the right balance in order to capture the elements you want in your image, which has a very high dynamic range between the dark landscape and bright moon.

Good luck and have fun!

Again, thank you so much for your help.

Hopefully with all that information I can go down tomorrow and get a good shot! I will play around with the settings and try and find the sweet spot between those 3 things.

Great to have someone to help you out when you’re not too sure what your doing wrong so it’s very much appreciated!

 

[zulu42]

You're most welcome.

I am a beginner myself, only a few steps ahead of you, so consider my information as reliable as anything on the internet ...lol

 

[Destin]

As others have said, you need a slow shutter speed to get clear images in the dark. That requires a tripod to avoid camera shake in most cases.

 

[KmH]

The moon is quite bright so if you want the moon to not be over exposed shutter speed will be about 1/500 per second if the moon is 1/2 lit, and ISO can be the lowest that is native for your camera.
Lens aperture can be about f/8 and you can shoot handheld, but having the camera on something solid - stable tripod, bean bag, rock, etc. - always helps.

If you want the moon and the landscape exposed well you'll need to make 2 images into a composite - one of the landscape properly exposed and one of the moon properly exposed.

Without the moon in the frame, just stars in other words, shutter speed will have to be on the order of several seconds, the lens aperture will need to be relatively large (f/3.5 is a large aperture) and the camera will have to be on a very stable tripod.
I shot this using a 400 mm focal length telescope as a lens. The original image was cropped to make the moon larger in the frame. The telescope/camera were on a tripod.
See the lower image for uncropped, 4 image composite of the moon made with the same 400 mm focal length telescope on a tripod.

End of lunar eclipse (9/27/2016)

 

[KmH]

And using a 3000 mm focal length telescope as a lens - no crop. Using 3000 mm I have to make 6 shots to get the entire moon.
Here is a time lapse of me setting up that telescope. The camera mounts on the focuser up near the top of the tube.
Public Night