Shooting the Moon

[Goldeeno]

I had a proper go at shooting the moon tonight, and to be honest, really struggled.
1)

2)

These two shots came out best. I was using my 350D, in RAW, 100-400mm, on a tripod, i havent got a remote but used the timer.
ISO 100

Tried different shutters and apertures, but the best shots came out with (am i right in saying large apertures?) of about f4. When i tried higher, and slower shutters, the images became blurred. Got the f to go to f40? Is that right?

Any help or advice, there just not what i was exspecting.

 

[ksven]

i tried taking some tonight too. unfortunatly, i dont have a tripod. pain in the ass. just big white blurs came out of it. >.<

 

[Double H]

It's overcast and snowing here!

BAH!

 

[TCimages]

i tried taking some tonight too. unfortunatly, i dont have a tripod. pain in the ass. just big white blurs came out of it. >.<

You may not need a tripod considering you use faster shutter speed for the moon. Try to use 300/400 shutter speeds with f8 aperture.

 

[chris]

The moon is effectively at infinity so you do not need a small aperture (high f number) to get it in focus, so forget about f/40 and set your lens to 1 or 2 stops past full aperture.

The exposure time should be short - the moon is in bright direct sunlight even if you are not. You also need to keep the exposure short to avoid blurring due to movement of the moon. If you put your camera on a firm tripod and set your lens to 400 mm you should be able to see noticeable movement over a short period. Try taking spot readings from the moon if you can.

You need seriously long lenses to fill the frame with the moon and these need good solid support for the shot - try a good tripod, beanbag and wall etc. I wouldn't recommend hand holding the camera - yopu may be using short exposures of about 1/250 sec but you are using a 400 mm lens and so will probably have problems with camera shake at those speeds. You could of course use a high ISO but there may then be a trade off in image quality.

Even iof you get all the photographic elements right there is still no guarantee of getting good shots. Astronomers refer to the 'seeing' being good or bad; this is the effect that atmospheric variations have on the image. essentially it is small scale variations in the refractive index of the atmosphere, vapour and particles in the atmosphere, light pollution etc that can all degrade the image - not much you can do about these except try to get somewhere with little ambient light or heat sources and hope that everything else comes together for the shot. very cold clear nights are probably best when a lot of the moisture has been frozen out of the air and the stars look especially bright, numerous and well defined.

The shots that you have are quite reasonable, just keep an eye out for exceptionally good conditions and keep on trying.

 

[Fiendish Astronaut]

Did you not try during full eclipse? I heard one astronomer phrase the phenomenon nicely last night. From the moon's point of view, the whole of the Earth would be surrounded by a sunset: hence the red colour on the moon.

Now that would be some picture! The next time they send people up to the moon, they should do it during a full lunar eclipse. Then I'll ask NASA or whichever agency's doing it if I can hitch a ride with my SLR and a good filter on my lens... ;-)

 

[xfloggingkylex]

the eclipse was difficult to photograph IMO, because it isn't like photographing the moon on a normal night. Instead the moon is in the "shade" and therefore much darker than normal. Shutterspeeds of 2s or more were used depending on aperture, but at 300mm, a 3s shutter introduced some minor motion blur (hard to think of motion blur with the moon). I wish I had a faster telephoto (5.6 was wide open for me) to get a faster shot of it, but oh well.

 

[logan9967]

Did you not try during full eclipse? I heard one astronomer phrase the phenomenon nicely last night. From the moon's point of view, the whole of the Earth would be surrounded by a sunset: hence the red colour on the moon.

Now that would be some picture! The next time they send people up to the moon, they should do it during a full lunar eclipse. Then I'll ask NASA or whichever agency's doing it if I can hitch a ride with my SLR and a good filter on my lens... ;-)

thats exactly how i explained it to my mom! and when i was taking pictures i was thinking of how beautiful the view from the moon is

 

[CWA_JGEISINGER]

I did get some shots of the eclipse last night

here is one of the better ones.....But it is a little blurry due to the 2 second shutter speed that was used \.

 

[Goldeeno]

I didnt try the eclipse, i had work the next morning, i wasnt gonna be bothered with taking photos, and it was freezing cold lol.

 

[CWA_JGEISINGER]

I didnt try the eclipse, i had work the next morning, i wasnt gonna be bothered with taking photos, and it was freezing cold lol.

Where i'm located it happened around 9:30 p.m so I did'nt have to wait up on it.

But yeah it was really cold!