Thoughts on shooting full moon/night sky.

[MonicaBH]

Hi, y'all. It's been a while since I've been here. Been out shooting still, and taking a basic photography course at a local community college.

A couple of nights ago during the full moon, I set up on my tripod (Slik 35D) and attempted to shoot the moon. The venture was rather unsuccessful, as a whole. I had the ISO down to 100-200, shutter set between 5s & 30s, and tried to keep the aperture between f/10-22. The moon stayed overexposed the entire time. I should also mention that I was using my cheapo Sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6.

I haven't uploaded any of the pictures yet but can do if requested.

Thanks, in advance.

 

[EIngerson]

Make sure you are using spot metering so you meter the moon itself. Also a little trick I figured out is try to get your shot around dusk when the sky still has some light in it. That way you can use faster shutter speed and produce nice sharp photos of the moon.

In my Pbase gallery under "RANDOM" there's a couple of my moon attempts.

Regards
Eric

 

[TCD photography]

The full moon is a lot brighter than its waxing and waning phases so you'll need a faster shutter speed to capture the details of the moon. If you could upload shot or two, that would be great.

I shot the full moon as well.... (please excuse the soft focus, my manual focus was off)

Exposure:	Manual
Shutter Speed	1/400
Aperture	f/5.7
ISO	100

Exposure	Manual
Shutter Speed	1/80
Aperture	f/6.3
ISO	100

I don't think it's your lens, both of my cameras aren't DSLRs and I'm happy with 80% of my moon photos. Were you trying to get the sky (with stars) and the moon, or just the moon? If so, that's beyond the camera's dynamic range and the moon will be overexposed, or the sky will be "underexposed". I agree with EIngerson's comment, dusk is a great time to get sharp photos the moon and still retain some of the sky's color.

Here's a dusk shot that I took a couple of years ago:

 

[MLeeK]

This is something most people screw up a time or two. You look at the inky black sky and think you need a longer exposure, when in reality you have to expose for the BRIGHTNESS of the moon. And it's pretty bright. Forget the black around it, it's the moon and only the moon you need to expose properly.

 

[KmH]

5 seconds of shutter time was way to long and 30 seconds was even worse.

Since the moon is 250,000 miles away (3,000,000 feet) you don't need to use a small apertures like f/10 to f/22, because even at large apertures the depth-of-field is billions of miles deep.

A 300 mm lens set to f/5.6 and shooting the Moon gives DoF that ranges from a near focus limit of about 2600 feet in front of the lens, to infinity behind the focus point on the moon.

 

[Ballistics]

moon

This is a pretty good instructional for shooting the moon.

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

shutter set between 5s & 30s, and tried to keep the aperture between f/10-22. The moon stayed overexposed the entire time.

Overexposure should tell you that something needs to be shorter.

 

[MonicaBH]

I started off with a very long exposure and worked my way down. I didn't have a whole bunch of time to play with my settings, so I made a few unsuccessful attempts.

I figure I have quite a few more full moons to attempt before it's all said and done. I will probably set up between now and then and just get a feel for what settings I'll want.

Thanks for everyone's thoughts and comments.

 

[Derrel]

The moon. Lighted by light from the sun.

 

[Jake_NN_Bake]

@TCD photography
The second moon picture you took is amazing! You mention that you did not use a dslr. So that was just zoomed in on?

 

[Starskream666]

Aye its hard working against the 9 hours of night time

 

[TCD photography]

@TCD photography
The second moon picture you took is amazing! You mention that you did not use a dslr. So that was just zoomed in on?

Thank you! My lens's longest focal length is 100mm when fully extended. With the purpose of cropping in mind, I shot - all hand held - with a larger file size than I normally do, so all I did was crop the shot and do some sharpening in post.