Trouble with moon and clouds

[Netskimmer]

For a good moon shot, you need at least 200mm of focal length on a cropped body. This was done using a newly serviced 70-200mm f/4 L IS USM on a 50D, 200mm focal length, ISO 100, f/7.1, 1/400 shutter speed, and edited in Photoshop CS5.

May 11, 2011 moon shot | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Cropped 100%

Great shot. Unfortunatly there was heavy cloud cover last night so I didn't have the opportunity to try myself. Maybe tonight.

 

[expat42451]

Interesting thread. I just shot the moon this evening (5/14/11) here on the Gulf Coast, 7:56 PM so it was not completely dark. I am totally amazed (being from the film days) what DSLR's are capable of. I do not currently have a tripod so braced the camera against my truck for steadying.

D 7000 70-300 4.5-5.6 VR ED. 300MM AF-A , shooting manual (ISO manual as well!) F 5.6 1/125 sec ISO 100 matrix metering.Exposure comp +5.0EV. WB auto. Saved RAW, then used Nikon ViewNX2 to crop the shot and convert to JPEG . No other PP The shot looks breathtaking on my monitor RAW but the JPEG is blah !

Expat

 

[Netskimmer]

I managed to get a few shot of the moon tonight (65 or so) It peeked out from the clouds for about 30min and then disappeared again. Virually all the shots were worthless and I noticed when I tried to use the built in HDR function the moon looked oblong or double exposed. (shots #1 and #2) I think this may simply be a matter of me not tightening the screws on my tri-pod enough and my depressing the shutter button caused slight movement between exposures. Unfortunately the moon hid on me before I could test this theory.

I did a little pp work on #3 to brighten it and #4 is obvously under exposed.

I would like to combine bracketed exposures or take manual shots and combine them but I don't have the software.

#1

#2

#3

#4

 

[johnh2005]

Ah glad I found this thread. I was trying to shoot the moon last night and FAILED MISERABLY. I see one of the problems was I was exposing for the night sky next to the moon. Blown out moon resulting. The second is my obviously undersized 18-55 mm lens =) lol. It could have made for some fantastic shots too. Clouds blowing by, framed by some spooky looking trees. /sigh. I think it might be time for a nice zoom lens!

 

[Netskimmer]

Hope you have better luck than I John. I'm still trying to get it right.

 

[johnh2005]

No, I did not in fact =( Here are some of the "better ones" I got.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5. My favorite though I know it still sucks.

Horrible I know but could have been sooooo nice.

 

[enzodm]

Virually all the shots were worthless and I noticed when I tried to use the built in HDR function the moon looked oblong or double exposed. (shots #1 and #2) I think this may simply be a matter of me not tightening the screws on my tri-pod enough and my depressing the shutter button caused slight movement between exposures. Unfortunately the moon hid on me before I could test this theory.

Moon is also moving. Is shots are not sufficiently fast, you will have three slightly different positions.

 

[JWellman]

Too much of an overcast to play last night so I thought I'd shoot a few this evening. I love shooting the moon. I remember reading somewhere that if you want the most detail, shoot when the moon is not full. Just an FYI in case you didn't know.

Canon 50d Lens 100x400 (resting on the hood of my car) f5.6, 1/400, ISO 200

And another with Derrel's recommended settings. f13, 1/250, ISO 200

 

[Netskimmer]

Thanks for the suggestions. Here are a few I shot recently.

f11, 1/100 ISO 100 B&W

f13, 1/125, ISO 200

 

[enzodm]

f13, 1/125, ISO 200

Don't be afraid of increasing sharpness, even if it adds some noise. It is an object with rough surface, so it is not such a great problem (I pp-ed your second one: I'll delete it soon from Flickr). Working on RAW may give some further extra.



I would suggest to play with Derrel values, by considering them just a reference. I would go with f/8 or so because on kit zooms should be (more or less) the value with maximum sharpness, adjusting the other values accordingly.