Moon shooting?

[Tyson]

Should I use a filter on the moon, it glares on me. We had a halo moon last night and my camera did not take the shot I wanted. What do I do to get the moon in focus and not over exposed.

 

[LaFoto]

Don't follow your camera's ideas on exposure.
Your camera "sees" all the black next to the one bright spot and will tell you to expose for the whole frame, i.e. also for the huge amount of black. Thus it'll say "Use long exposures, it is soooooo dark", and you do so and the moon gets way too bright.

It is almost as bright as the sun when it is out full.
Exposure times such as 1/125 sec. are enough. Believe it or not.
(It is thanks to PlasticSpanner on here that I know it and had a chance to try it out, too, so credit to this "knowledge" does not go to me).

 

[CMan]

^^^
What she said. Your camera will try to take a long exposure, and it won't work.

What you need is something like f/11 and 1/15; this combo has worked like magic for me. Even then, however, you will need a polarizer because it really is almost as bright as the sun.

Here are my results using this setup.

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/showthread.php?p=635328#post635328

 

[PetersCreek]

It [the Moon] is almost as bright as the sun when it is out full.

Ummmm...not really. :greenpbl:

Astronomically speaking, the Sun has an apparent magnitude of about -26.73, while the Moon comes in at about -12.6 when full. (Negative numbers are brighter on the magnitude scale) Each step on the scale is approximately 2.512 times brighter than the next dimmer step. So, if my math comes out correctly, the Sun is almost 450,000 times brighter than the full Moon.

As far as the proper exposure for the Moon, if you can't spot meter, I'd start with the Sunny 16 Rule. After all, the Moon is a sunlit object...so f/16 @ 125s, ISO 100 should come pretty close. But then, the Moon is actually darker (on average) than an 18% grey card, so I'd also bracket open a stop or two.

 

[LaFoto]

Outch.
I stand corrected.

And I must admit that ... erm ... I understand only little of your answer. But ... ok, I understand that the sun is much, much brighter than the moon.

Which it is.
Common sense also tells you as much.
You can stare at the full moon and get all starry eyed, but you will soon be beyond starry-eyed, in fact BLIND, when you do the same with the sun.

So agreed.

And still: if you let the camera decide, the decision will always be in favour of all the darkness around (unless you can spotmeter, ok), and that brings about the over-exposure of the moon (would you say "himself" or "herself" in English ... it is male in German but definitely female in Spanish, for example).

 

[PetersCreek]

Outch.
I stand corrected.

And I must admit that ... erm ... I understand only little of your answer.

Sorry...I'm a bit of a science geek and get carried away from time to time. Fun stuff for me but a huge bore to other people...like my dear wife.

But you're absolutely correct. Whether you're shooting a small moon in a dark sky...or Suzy Two-Shoes in a snow field...the camera's meter will most likely let you down.

Oh...und wir sagen "itself" für den Mond auf Englisch. We very seldom use gender-specific articles for inanimate objects.

 

[Alex_B]

Mr Moon is male ...

no, you are right.

but i know many gals who give their cameras, phones, and cars male names ... and if you say "it" they take it as an offense

 

[CMan]

My camera has a name..."the camera".:greenpbl:

 

[CFRacer22]

Ummmm...not really. :greenpbl:

Astronomically speaking, the Sun has an apparent magnitude of about -26.73, while the Moon comes in at about -12.6 when full. (Negative numbers are brighter on the magnitude scale) Each step on the scale is approximately 2.512 times brighter than the next dimmer step. So, if my math comes out correctly, the Sun is almost 450,000 times brighter than the full Moon.

As far as the proper exposure for the Moon, if you can't spot meter, I'd start with the Sunny 16 Rule. After all, the Moon is a sunlit object...so f/16 @ 125s, ISO 100 should come pretty close. But then, the Moon is actually darker (on average) than an 18% grey card, so I'd also bracket open a stop or two.

**Warning - I'm very knew to this so don't take this advice lol. I've tried shooting the moon lately since its been full, the settings that gave me the best pictures, extremely clear, were f/9, 1/1600, ISO 1600. I don't know why I had the shutter that fast but whatever. I've tried all kinds of variations just trail and error style but if I ever lower the ISO to as low as ya'll are talking about I get almost a fully black picture.

 

[montresor]

I guess if the moon is the only thing in the picture, I agree with the above. I had a situation, however, in which I had the moon included in a photo that also featured clouds passing over the moon and a dimly lit Gothic structure in the foreground, and I shot it at 1/15 and f4.5 at an ISO setting of 400. And yes, the moon does look a little overexposed, but all the other stuff made it in fairly well. Took it with a little pocket digital, BTW, which performed admirably, I think.

http://www.photoshelter.com/gallery-img-show?G_ID=G00006J7tlzPZHpY&P_ID=&start=11&pagtotal=63

 

[Mitica100]

Check this calculator:

http://www.shaystephens.com/moon_calc.php

 

[CMan]

CFracer;

High ISO=not good. Too much noise, too many artifacts, etc.

It should be something around ISO 100, lower if you've got it. The reason the pictures you are taking are black is because of the shutter speed. It needs to be in the 1/30-1/10 range, depending on how sharp you want it to be. As I said, 1/15 works well for me.

 

[Jzero]

I have to admit that I know very little about the required technique for taking pictures of the moon, so I just fiddled with the settings a bit, pointed (on a tripod) and shot.... here's the result:

1.The moon:
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a68/Cogboot/moon1.jpg

2. Same moon, different color:
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a68/Cogboot/moon4.jpg

J

 

[CFRacer22]

Cman, thanks for the help, as I said I'm very new to photography outside of a p&s, so I'm still learning a lot

 

[PetersCreek]

...f/9, 1/1600, ISO 1600. I don't know why I had the shutter that fast but whatever.

Your shutter speed was fast because your ISO was set high. Even so, your exposure was less than 2 stops off the recommended (full moon) starting point of f/16 & 1/ISO that I posted earlier. If you'd lowered you ISO to 800, a shutter speed of 1/800 should've given the same exposure. Same with ISO 400 and 1/400, ISO 200 and 1/200, etc.

Montresor's case is similar to any number of other photographic situtions where the dynamic range of the scene is too great for our sensors. However, when the moon is a fairly small, isolated element of the scene, it's not too hard to make two exposures and comp them in PS. Alternatively, you take care of it in camera by using an ND grad filter to hold the Moon back a bit.