Shooting for the Moon

With the full moon appearing tonight, last evening I tried shooting some shots as it was a nice night with just some interesting clouds that added to the moon.

So I pulled out my handy H2, and tried using a number of ISO/shutter (from 13" on down)/aper. settings to get it right, some with tripod, some handheld. No filters.

Anyway, I had some pretty neat scenes lined up in 3 locations trees, buildings, a statue, etc. I could see however, when I was checking them that there was a) either a red "corona" around the moon b) they were way too "soft" or c) had the moon appearing as a sunburst.

I got home and uploaded them and was very disappointed. I guess I'm just looking for any tips considering that is the same camera with the same limitations I'll be using, and I'll have the same limitations as well!!

Post a couple here, the first is probably the best in terms of clarity/detail. Thanks for any helpful comments.

The 2nd example.

You have to remember that the moon is very, very bright. In order to get the correct exposure of the moon you are going to have to do a spot meter. The problem with the the moon, for example your 2nd shot, is that the moon only takes up about 1-3% of the entire image. So when you don't use a spot meter, it's going to see 97% of the frame is dark and adjust the exposure. In this 2nd image you were at f2.8 at 1/2 sec but at a very high ISO. This will blow the moon out with extreme highlights.

Here's a moon shot from last months full moon. Download it and look at the meta data and you can see I was shooting at f/8 at 1/45 at ISO 200 and it was a spot meter off the moon.

Hope this helps.

Hi Brian, I was trying everything by the 2nd one, I may have even had it on "auto" but am not positive.

Thank you so much for the excellent information. What a difference in the detail! It's been overcast now for awhile, but I hope to get the chance to experiment tonight, or at least tomorrow. I appreciate your advice very much and hope i am able to follow correctly. Take care,

Bill

Brian's right. The moon is a sunlit object, so you have to shoot like it's daylight. Then take a second exposure for the sky and ground and merge the two shots. Unfortunately, that's the only way unless you get a clear filter with a ½" spot that's 4 stops darker to put over the moon!

I shot this one two nights ago, and just for reference, I shot at ISO 100, 1/400, f/5.6. I was using a 5D Mark II with a 70-200mm (at 200mm of course), and shot handheld. I then cropped the 5616 px wide image down to 720 px to get this crop. That's why I used ISO 100, so I'd have full quality to work with.

Bill, here's an example of merging 4 shots, three of the different phases of an eclipse, then the fourth image was 30 seconds so I could get stars, but you could do the same with a landscape lit by the moon. In fact, your images you posted could be the landscape layer, then just shoot the moon at the right setting and you're good to go!

Here is a shot I took with a eos 40d 600mm f4 with a 2x and 1.4x converters stacked, the image is full frame, the moon was too big to fit it all in frame.

moon picture sorry not a full member so can not post the pic in thread, exif is in the picture. iso 100 1/80th f8 ish

Thing about the moon is, it is so far away you still get good detail at f2.8 or less, the moon looks flat when full, but at half moon and other phases you get great shadows and colours.

Dani

Thank you folks so much for all of your advice. Though some of it may be over tech capabilties or equipment's, I truly appreciate it all. Stunning images all. I would encourage anyone to click on Dani's link above, great image!

Unfortunately it looks like a bust as it is drizzling here in PA with a pretty full cloud cover. I'll try to use this info as best I can for future reference. Maybe tomorrow.

Many years ago, I read that to get the moon properly exposed high in the night sky, use a sunny f11 rule - under clean, clear atmosphere, the starting point for your exposure is ISO 100, f11, 1/125 sec,

Paul's shot above is 1/3 of a stop more exposure. It looks right so it might be a little bit of atmospheric haze, especially if it was nearer the horizon than over head.

If you are going to try for both the moon and a landscape, you are going to have to pick and choose or do some work in Photoshop (HDR).

Bill: Dan beat me to the moony f11 rule. With that you will get a nice moon exposure but may get very little BG. When I want to get really tricky I'll shoot the moon exposure and then shoot a separate shot for the BG with just a slightly wider angle so that the properly exposed moon will be just a touch bigger than the blown moon that will show up in the BG shot. >=))>

Thanks Dan and Bill!!! Wow, what an education one can get on here. I will certainly reference this thread topic before I even ATTEMPT more "moon shots". Can't say enough about NPN and the expertise on here, if there ever was any doubt in my mind, it certainly affirms my amateur status and knowledge--the inner eye is here I'm failry sure, but I have to make the effort to let the brain catch up! Cheers everyone...

PS--Total shut out tonight with fully overcast night sky so far.

Thanks for asking this question Bill, I tried to shoot the moon last night and got the same results you did. Thank you guys for sharing your knowledge/

Tony

Awesome advice by all! I was wondering why I was getting terrible shots.
Matt

Here is a link to a calculator for moon exposures. For someone new at tryingto photograph the moon it is pretty helpful. http://www.adidap.com/2006/12/06/moon-exposure-calculator/

One thing I noticed when taking the shots the other night: the moon in your LCD looks WAY underexposed, and the histogram gets wigged out by all of the black data. So start with the settings that many have posted here such as the sunny f11 rule, and then just bracket. Film...er... binary data is cheap!

My only thought on the sunny f11 rule is that you start getting near the diffraction end of your lens (not an issue for film), and since your depth of field widens as the object is farther away, you could easily get away with dropping the f-stop down 2 stops to 5.6 and upping the shutter speed 2 stops to 1/500. Then bracket to allow for luminance variance (say that 3 times real fast!).

Hey, did you guys look at Dani's shot? WOW, I felt like I was coming in for a landing near the Sea of Tranquility! She's got a bit of CA on the moon's edge (easy to clean up) but other than that I'm diggin' that image. Good job Dani!

Great Paul!

As I posted earlier, Dani's image is just sweet. Very nice as are others.

Hey, it WORKED! Thanks guys. I just got home from a friends and saw the big fat moon hanging overhead and had my camera in my car. Would have been nicer if I had a tripod but...

f/8, 1/800s, -4 EC, ISO 200 (Big Crop!)

- Luke

That's sweet Luke! OK, yesterday at 4:30 a.m. approximately the moon was visible, so I used the "moonie rule" of ISO-100, 1/125th, and for the f-stop, i could only go to f 8.0 with my Sony so that is what I used. And all it has is 12x optical zoon... so is here the moon the day after full, and a bit out of round in the sky at that time. It's a start, now if I could get the background imagery stuff down in processing... thanks all, good thread and it shows amateurs like me, "DON"T BE AFRAID TO ASK on here". Great help in a non-concdescending way...