Photographing the moon

[Reidy10_0]

Full moon again tonight and a clear night so i tried to get a couple of snaps of the full moon.

I have a Nikon D40 with a 300mm telephoto lens.

Tripod and infa red shutter control.

I tried all sorts of settings but i could not get a good picture.
I am an amature so please go easy on me and dont give me too much technical jargon but where am i going wrong?

Thanks

[coanda]

You need to go manual for this. The black sky and bright moon will totally confuse the camera! Best thing to do is to set the F stop you want (F8 for example) and the lowest iso your camera goes to and then experiment with different shutter speeds until you get the exposure you want. Use a remote release and a sturdy tripod in an area that won't get affected by wind.

eta....

Seems I've taken my moon shots off my webspace and they won't be on my laptop. One other thing is to underexpose slighlty and you can tweak the brightness in post processing. This should help you capture more detail.

here are a couple...

Edited by coanda on Wednesday 7th October 00:10

Edited by coanda on Wednesday 7th October 00:19

[don4l]

Reidy10_0 said:

I tried all sorts of settings but i could not get a good picture.
I am an amature so please go easy on me and dont give me too much technical jargon but where am i going wrong?

Thanks

Why don't you post your best effort and we will tell you what was wrong with it. Also, you have no need to feel like an "amateur". Astrophotography is a very demanding hobby, and everyone who does it remembers their first shots. Without exception, they were all absolute crap. My first attempt was Saturn. It was a disaster. I had no concept of "field of view". Even though it was reasonably focussed, it was still only a pin point of light.


If you really do not want to post the result, then tell us what you think was wrong with it. Was it a completely white disk? Was it lacking in detail? Were there colour fringes?

If your tripod is flimsy, then the mirror "flick" may introduce shake that would make your image look out of focus.


Don
--

[Kinky]

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[GetCarter]

I can't remember if the D40 will let you choose between metering the whole scene, centre weighting, or spot metering. If it does then choose spot. If your mooon is 'whiting out' - that's probably the reason.

[DIW35]

Lots of good advice already given. Remember that the moon is in full sunlight so will need an exposure similar to anything in full sunlight here on terra firma. A good starting point will probably be in the region of 1/125s, f/8 or f/11 and ISO 100. As already mention if you have spot metering, use that or your camera will be fooled in to the wrong exposure by the amount of dark sky in the frame. Alternatively go manual and try the setting I've given above, and tweak as necessary.

Finally, the full moon doesn't always give up the best photos, as it lacks detail. If you can shoot at any other time, you will be rewarded with more details of the craters along the terminator (the bit where the sunny part meets the dark part) as the oblique angle of the sun casts some great shadows.

Edited by DIW35 on Wednesday 7th October 09:42

[coanda]

Go on then DIW - what lens did you take that shot with!?

Nice shots guys.

One of the best things about photography - especially with digital bodies - is the ablity to play around!

[DIW35]

I can't remember, but was probably through my Celestron 2350mm mirror lens.

[coanda]

Nice....does the moon fill the frame at that focal length then?

[Reidy10_0]

Thanks for the advice.
I used manual focus but the moon was just a white disc with a black background.
I would not waste your time posting the pics i had taken last night.

Good point about my tripod, it is a low budget model so possibly it will shake when using remote shutter.


i will try the settings you gave me ASAP.

[M-J-B]

I love the moon and find it really fascinating -



400D
0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture: f/11.0
Focal Length: 500 mm

Taken on a tripod and with a remote.

[Fordo]

mine results are a bit terrrible, but thought id share since the OP is using a D40

mine was also taken on a d40, with a 200mm vr lens. Upped the iso a little so i could shoot on a faster shutter speed, as I didnt have a tripod to hand and was bracing the camera on my cars roof!

Aperture: f 5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 400



I took the photo in raw, so i could try and eek out as much detail as possible. It took me a little bit of experimentation to get it right. the moon moves fast, and is way brighter than you think it is.

I've cropped the photo in quite far- 200mm just isnt enough for the moon.

I was planning on running the photo through noise ninja to remove the noise, and sharpen it a little in PS

edited to add: theres some stunning photos here from everyone!

Edited by Fordo on Wednesday 7th October 19:04

[oobster]

My attempt from ealier this week:



ISO 400
f/5.6
1/1600
EFS 55-250mm IS USM @ 250mm
Canon 400D on Manual mode

This was my first attempt at lunar photography. I feel the 55-250 isn't quite getting me the reach I need. The photo above was worked on a little in PhotoShop - contrast & levels mostly, as well as a slight crop.

[beano500]

Fordo said:

Aperture: f 5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 400

I think you can afford to up your shutter speed without opening up the aperture maybe up to two stops. Generally I'd guess at about f/16 on ISO X equal to 1/X. Think you should find you have the detail there in a RAW file.

[beano500]

DIW35 said:

Love it!

[Simpo Two]

beano500 said:

I think you can afford to up your shutter speed without opening up the aperture maybe up to two stops. Generally I'd guess at about f/16 on ISO X equal to 1/X.

I deduce you are pissed Sir.

[beano500]

Simpo Two said:

beano500 said:

Sober comment

I deduce you are pissed Sir.

Not at all - Sunny 16 works for me.....

[don4l]

Here's one that I took last night. The "seeing" was horrible. "Seeing" is turbulence in the air which results in twinkling stars. It also means that you cannot get a really sharp image.

Anyway, as I couldn't get a good image, I decided to combine three monochrome images into a colour shot. The colours are due to the fact that it had started to get cloudy, so each monochrome image had some bright and dark areas.






Don

--

[big dub]

[central]

Digiscoped.

Edited by central on Tuesday 27th October 22:48