Shooting the moon

[johnytrout]

Last night I shot several shots of the moon.However, On playback I noticed that I had another moon in blue!Can the UV filter cause this? I took it off and found it much better.My manual says that my ISO should be set to 1600 - 12800 for night shots with no flashBut my shots of the moon were way too bright with no focus.I took the ISO down to 200 and all was fine.Is the manual misleading me?

 

[astroNikon]

One of the The rule of thumb for the moon is
ISO 100
F/11
1/125 shutter

Check your whitebalance on auto.. ir might be set to incandescent or something for the blue ???
Then vary the settings as appropriate

 

[astroNikon]

here's a Moon shot thread at 1/125 at ISO 250
http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/general-gallery/337050-moon-8-19-2013-a.html
with minimal toying around in LightRoom

 

[Bulb]

Last night I shot several shots of the moon.However, On playback I noticed that I had another moon in blue!Can the UV filter cause this? I took it off and found it much better.My manual says that my ISO should be set to 1600 - 12800 for night shots with no flashBut my shots of the moon were way too bright with no focus.I took the ISO down to 200 and all was fine.Is the manual misleading me?

It's likely that the UV filter is a cause of the 'ghost moon' in your image. Filters can cause flares and ghosting and should be removed when they're not necessary.

As astroNikon mentioned, ISO 100, f/11, 1/125 or any equivalent exposure will give you a good shot of the moon at night. Your manual is suggesting ISO settings that are suitable for hand-held low-light photography where more motion-stopping power is needed. The quicker shutter speeds are useless in this case and bumping up the ISO will only create more noise. The manual isn't misleading so much as it doesn't take into account astrophotography.

If your camera can't lock focus on the moon then you should be able to switch to manual focus and set it to focus on infinity.

 

[iolair]

The moon is not a night shot - it's an object directly lit by the sun, so you use similar settings to sunlit scenes down here. (start with f/11 1/200s at ISO 100 and fine adjust from there).

You're also presumably shooting with a very long focal length to get the moon a decent size. For that reason you want to take steps to minimise camera shake - put your camera on a tripod, use a timer or remote shutter release (so you don't make the camera shake by touching it), and possibly (depending on your camera) set the 'mirror lock-up' function.

(For shooting stars, objects under streetlights or other dim lighting, your manual's suggestions for ISO are correct).

As suggested above, check your white balance - AUTO may not always pick the best setting. Try 'daylight' (or shoot in RAW and fix it in processing).

 

[Dao]

According to wikipedia ,

The Moon,[SUP]c[/SUP] altitude > 40°
Full	15
Gibbous	14
Quarter	13
Crescent	12

Full moon is EV 15, so find your lens' sweet spot at the focal length you like to use. For example, from the MTF chart here, shoot with the EF-S 55-250mm IS lens at 250mm focal length, the sweet spot is around f/8.

So look up from the EV table for EV 15 at ISO 100, the shutter speed should be 1/500. In that case, I will start the shoot with f/8, 1/500 and ISO100 at 250mm with the EF-S 55-250mm lens.

Of course, if you are shooting with EF 70-200mm f/2.8 IS II lens, at 200mm, the sweet spot is f/4 (according to here), so EV 15 is f/4, 1/2000 and ISO100 at 200mm. With that, you can try it to shoot hand held.

 

[KmH]

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/beyond-basics/147712-lunar-moon-photography-guide-astrostu.html

 

[johnytrout]

This is my first attempt, apart from the blue ghosted one
I don't think it is sharp enough.
Am not sure if it's ok to post the photos here or not.

 

[astroNikon]

This is my first attempt, apart from the blue ghosted one
I don't think it is sharp enough/

what was your entire setup?

btw, my one moon shot I don't think I've been that sharp & detailed before. That was also the first time I used RAW and processed it a bit then to JPEG.

 

[KmH]

This is my first attempt, apart from the blue ghosted one
I don't think it is sharp enough.

An issue when shooting the Moon is Earth's atmosphere is always moving.
The moving atmosphere distorts the light and makes the Moon look blurry.

The closer to the horizon the Moon is, the thicker the atmosphere is, say 120 miles thick..
Ideally, you want to shoot the Moon when it is as high in the sky as it will get where you are, maybe only 50-60 miles thick. That minimizes the amount of atmosphere you have to shoot through.

Astrophotographers cherish those nights when the atmosphere isn't moving much, because on those nights they can make their sharpest images.

When the astronauts were on the Moon they had a lot of difficulty judging how far things in the distance were because there is no atmosphere to give blur/distortion distance clues.
Things they thought were close were a lot father away then they judged.