To all you MOON PHOTOGRAPHERS

[LaFoto]

For years now I've tried to get a good photo of the moon.
I don't succeed. It's either too bright - or way too far away!!!!

Look at this photo first, you can only just about guess where (and how far away) the moon is when I use my normal 50mm lense (the leaning birch tree seems to point at it with its branch):

Here now, you can see my friend, the moon, at the fully extended telephoto lense (300mm), and that is the closest I can get to it!

Quite deliberately, I took this one in broad daylight, to make sure the light would be ok, and I even used a polariser, which gave me the idea I might even get some structure to be seen in my photo. Little as there is, there is more than in any of my previous ones.

But how on earth do you get photos of the moon, claiming you had only used your 300mm telephoto lense and no telescope or any other longer-focus means, with the craters to be seen, the moon being all big?

Even if I scan a crop at 1600dpi, this is all I get:

I find that mildly frustrating...

 

[mentos_007]

once I usd iso 50 and the pic wasn't so crispy, but then I spoiled all the exposure So I can't help ya

 

[Digital Matt]

Serious moon and astro photographers use a telescope with a camera mount I think. If you want to fill the frame with the moon that is.

 

[Patrick]

300mm Sigma lens, Spot metered, F22, 1/15.
I had been told to spot meter and use the highest f stop poss. Seems to work.

 

[Soulreaver]

I have a 300mm but its not enough to fill the negative.
Been meaning to get a teleconverter to try some more pics.
But you can use crop and enlarge it a lot , especially if you use low iso film.
Have to use tripod for that too.

The thing I wanted most was to have a huge moon along something else on the pic, like a face shot or house's roof.I tried multiple exposure for that but 300mm just isn't enough.

Digital would be so much easier , lol

 

[airgunr]

I've tried it with a 80-400mm with a 2x telextender and it still is not enough to fill the frame. You also need a tripod and use the mirror lockup at those types of lens lengths.

One rule of thumb for shooting moon pictures is to use the sunny 16 rule for exposure.

 

[Jess]

300mm Sigma lens, Spot metered, F22, 1/15.
I had been told to spot meter and use the highest f stop poss. Seems to work.

That's really useful information. I had assumed you would want a wide open aperature to consume as much light as possible, also as slow a shutter speed as possible. I actually intend to try my hand at this in the near future. I really appreciate your input. I think I'll now try both and compare!

 

[Patrick]

That's really useful information. I had assumed you would want a wide open aperature to consume as much light as possible, also as slow a shutter speed as possible. I actually intend to try my hand at this in the near future. I really appreciate your input. I think I'll now try both and compare!

As it was explained to me also..... use the same rules you would for a sunny day seeing that it's the sun making the moon glow as it does. Makes sence.
Good luck.

And yes, digital makes things alot easier while tying different things.

 

[Rogue Monk]

In order to find out how big the moon will look in your viewfinder, you multiply the focal length (or equivalent of you're shooting digital) by 0.033. This will tell you how much of the vertical frame the moon will fill.

So, for a 300mm lens on a film camera, the moon would fill just less than 10% of the vertical measure. On a D70, that same lens would make the moon fill 14.85% of the vertical.

If I wanted to fill 50%, I'd need an effective focal length of 1515.152mm.

I first read this from Derrick Story's book, Digital Photography Hacks. An excellent book and highly recommended.

As for shooting both people and a detailed moon, I'd recommend composing the two in a photo editor.