Shooting the Moon

mudthirsty

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A few months ago I was shooting the moon, and i thought they turned out pretty good. Last night I tried to shoot the moon again with clouds going by. But all I kept getting was a bright shining moon, instead of it being crisp. Even with different shutter speeds. What's the best setting for shooting the moon? Here's my first pic.

moon.jpg
 
You have to shoot the moon in Manual. Its alot brighter than your camera thinks.

When Hand Holding(I dont own a tripod) I usually start with a Shutter speed around 125 and aperture around 8.

If I had a tripod I would bump the aperture to something like 11 or 16 and drop the shutter speed to 25 or so.

These are all handheld, and if your curious the Shot data is stored on Flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=moon&w=82308981@N00
This one is my person favorite
http://www.flickr.com/photos/randerson07/2479058069/meta/
 
I remember a question I read in a photgraphic book from before the time when even hand-held meters were commonplace.

Q: What is the correct exposure for the moon.
A: The same as for any other sunlit landscape.
 
Remember, you're not shooting the dark sky. You're basically shooting the reflection of the sun. Exposure times should be short with small aperture. No need for high ISO. I use aperture priority (not manual) and my 30D does OK with it. It also seems to work better for me when the moon is down low near the horizon rather than high in the sky.

Hmmmm ... went back and found a couple I took.

This one is f16 @ 1 sec at 300mm ISO 125

moon.jpg


and this one, taken late afternoon, is f5.6 @ 1/640sec at 300 mm ISO 160

bluemoon.jpg


... go figure. Guess ya just have to play a bit. Both were taken with my Sigma 50-150mm f2.8 with Sigma 2X TC
 
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I have heard this over and over again, to use a small aperture. As far as I'm concerned, there is absolutely no reason to use a small aperture (high f/#). This is especially applicable if you don't have a tripod because the higher the f/#, the slower your shutter speed has to be or the higher the ISO. The first will give you a blurrier picture and the second will give you a noisier picture.

The only reason that I've heard that makes sense to use an aperture smaller than your maximum wide-open aperture is that lenses are generally sharpest at 1-3 stops smaller than their widest. And yet another reason not to use your minimum aperture is that this sharpest point IS generally 1-3 stops down, and that it gets blurrier at the smallest apertures (due to diffraction).

Here is a section from a guide that I wrote, and note that you will need to use a longer exposure than suggested if the moon is less than full, but the values listed can still be used as a starting point.

This is the most important phase to be able to photograph because it is the one where you (1) set up your equipment, (2) make sure it is working right, (3) determine your basic exposure settings, and (4) focus properly. So go ahead and do 1-2.

Steps 3 and 4 are somewhat iterative - you will need to determine your exposure so that you can focus. Then go back and make sure your exposure is still correct, and then if you have changed it, you will want to verify your focus is still correct.

When determining your exposure settings, remember that the three main things that determine how much light is recorded are (1) shutter speed / exposure length, (2) aperture, and (3) ISO (remember that shutter speed and aperture can be collectively referred to in the EV measurement). First, set your ISO to its lowest setting (this will probably be 100). Second, set your aperture to its largest setting, which is the lowest f/number. Then increase the f/number by 1, 2, or 3 stops (remember, this is based upon a "sweet spot" of sharpness in most lenses). Third, experiment with shutter speed until the Moon is exposed properly. Use your f/number and an EV12 for the full Moon as a starting point. The following table should help:

f/number 1.4 2.0 2.8 4.0 4.5 5.0 5.6 8.0 14.0
Shutter Speed (sec) 1/2000 1/1000 1/500 1/250 1/200 1/160 1/125 1/60 1/20

The above table should only be used as a guide, especially because the Moon's brightness will vary depending upon its position in the sky, atmospheric turbulence, and particles and pollution in the air. For example, with an f/14 aperture on a 900 mm (1440 mm equivalent) lens, an exposure of around 1/120-sec properly exposed the Moon for me just before the last eclipse. That corresponds to EV14.5, and this was when the Moon was near its highest point in the sky (hence Wikipedia's EV15 value). When using a 480 mm equivalent lens at f/5.6, an exposure of around 1/250- to 1/320-sec properly exposed the Moon a few months earlier. If the Moon appears too dark with your shutter speed, then decrease the speed to allow more light in. If the Moon appears all white with your shutter speed, then increase the speed to allow in less light.

This is where using the Histogram feature on your camera helps. The Histogram is a graph telling you where most of the recorded light falls. If the Histogram peaks towards the left side, this means that most of the pixels in the image are dark. If the Histogram peaks towards the right side, then the opposite is true. Ideally, you want it to peak in the middle. But, unless the Moon fills the entire field of view of the image, this will not happen because the night sky will dominate the scene.

Therefore, most of the pixels will be fairly dark, up against the left side of the Histogram. However, there should be a peak in the brighter part of the Histogram (the right side) - this is the Moon. You want that peak to be somewhere in the middle of the Histogram. You do not ever want it to truncate prematurely against either side.

Further explanation of Histograms is not the purpose of this guide. For more information, many people recommend this webpage: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/understanding-histograms.shtml .

If you are finding that you need really slow shutter speeds at this point (such as 1/30-sec or longer), then double-check your aperture and make sure that it is mostly open (you are using a small f/number). If you are finding you need really fast shutter speeds (such as 1/300-sec or faster), then double-check the ISO to make sure it is not too high.

To focus, set the manual focus at infinity, or if you have an SLR, then set it as far "past" infinity as you can. Take a picture. Either look at it on the camera's LCD screen (zoomed in), or at the image on a computer. It will probably be out of focus. Now - just a little at a time - change the focus in the other direction, and take another picture. Continue this process until the picture you take is in focus (or in focus enough for your purposes).

For me, this is often the longest part of setting up and it can be a pain. But it is a very necessary step … you would not want to spend 5 hours out in the cold photographing the Moon and come back and look at out-of-focus blobs. You should also be checking the images periodically throughout the night to ensure the focus has not changed due to temperature, focus creep, or accidentally bumping the lens.

Now that the lens is in focus, double-check the exposure Histogram to make sure your exposure settings are still alright, and adjust accordingly if they are not.
 
Astrostu -- thanks for this summary ... more logical by far than my trial and error method!
 
A full moon has a brightness of 250 candles per square foot. We know this due mostly to Ansel Adams' publishings. This would be an additive light value of just greater than 5 on a variation of the EV Index. Now your film speed. Assuming a faster film speed, you have a speed value of 6 for ISO200, 7 for ISO400, 8 for ISO800, 9 for ISO1600 and 10 for ISO 3200. So your EV number for ISO200 would be EV11. EV 12 for ISO400, EV13 for ISO800, EV14 for ISO1600 and EV15 for ISO3200. Of course this would be for a Zone V exposure. If you want the moon brighter than a middle tone of brightness then increase exposure value (decrease EV number) appropriately.
 
A full moon has a brightness of 250 candles per square foot. We know this due mostly to Ansel Adams' publishings. This would be an additive light value of just greater than 5 on a variation of the EV Index. Now your film speed. Assuming a faster film speed, you have a speed value of 6 for ISO200, 7 for ISO400, 8 for ISO800, 9 for ISO1600 and 10 for ISO 3200. So your EV number for ISO200 would be EV11. EV 12 for ISO400, EV13 for ISO800, EV14 for ISO1600 and EV15 for ISO3200. Of course this would be for a Zone V exposure. If you want the moon brighter than a middle tone of brightness then increase exposure value (decrease EV number) appropriately.

Chris,

There's a sizable mismatch between Stu's suggestion of Ev 14.5 or Wikipedia's Ev 15 for the Moon high in the sky (and ISO 100) and yours of Ev 10 (extrapolated from your suggestion of Ev 11 for ISO 200). There should be some difference because of the difference in the Moon's altitude, but not that much.

Ansel's mention of 250 c/ft2 was for his Moonrise at Hernandez photo, when the Moon was low in the sky. To place that on Zone V with ISO 100 film (Sv 5) would require an Ev of about 14.5, not 10 (you can use AA's 'key stop' method to determine this if you want it AA's way*). AA placed it on Zone VII for Moonrise, so his exposure would have been equivalent to Ev 12.5 at ISO 100 (and no filter). The reason for your error appears to be in your conversion of 250 c/ft2 to a Bv of 5. It isn't. It is 9.6.

The important thing to remember, as already mentioned, is that the illuminated side of the Moon is a sunlit landscape - so the exposure should not be too far from that which would be appropriate for a sunlit terrestrial landscape.


* Key stop for ISO 100 film is f/10 (the square root of 100)
Av for f/10 is 6.6
Shutter speed to place 250 c/ft2 on Zone V = 1/250 s
Tv for 1/250 is 8
Therefore the Ev is about 14.5.

Best,
Helen
 
...Key stop for ISO 100 film is f/10 (the square root of 100)...

Just in case this is misunderstood, I should explain that this use of 'key stop' is just for determining one possible combination of aperture and shutter speed for a particular subject brightness, it is not a recommendation for the actual aperture to use. It was the exposure method used by Ansel Adams for his Moonrise at Hernandez photo - one of his iconic images.

At the key stop (which is the square root of the film speed in ISO (arithmetic ISO, also known as ASA by many) the shutter speed in seconds should be the reciprocal of the subject luminance in c/ft2 for a Zone V placement. All other combinations of placement, aperture and shutter speed can be calculated from that - which is what Ansel Adams did for Moonrise.

Best,
Helen
 

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