Moon shots

Ned Senior

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Hi all,
Had a fab moon a few weeks back and went out when fully dark with my d3200 and sigma 70-300 non apo lens
I could focus well and see great definition through the viewfinder, however when viewing the shots ( taken by remote release)
The moon was just a yellow blob pahhhh!!!!!
I used a fairly long exposure 1 second and others!!!!
Not sure on other settings sadly

Sorry if I sound a thicko just trying to gain knowledge,

Any advice for next time would be great please ;)
 
Here is a moon shot I took the other week:


20140414_019.jpg by Dan_Large, on Flickr

For reference the settings were as follows:
Exposure: 1/200
Aperture: f/8.0
ISO: 100

When taking shoots of the moon you will need to use spot metering of the moon it's self, otherwise it will be averaged out with the dark night sky and be over exposed.
 
Thankyou off to google spot metering haha

Well that was quick!!!! :))

Sadly; although there is a good moon tonight there is also lots of cloud moving quickly low and other still cloud slightly higher.
But not to worry tomorrow will come
 
The moon actually moves quite quickly so you don't want to use a slow shutter. Also, the moon emits (technically reflects) quite a bit of light. Set your ISO low, use f8-f11 aperture and then adjust the shutter as required to give the correct exposure. Remember to use spot metering on the moon though and not wide otherwise it will be metering all the black sky too and chances are you'll over expose the moon.
 
Yeah the key point from Snerkler above is that the moon is actually quite bright. The first time that I tried it, I did the same and I may as well have been photographing the sun. Definitely shorten the shutter speeds and stop down the aperture, that should get you closer to a good starting point.
 
Remember that the moon is in full sunlight, it may be night here but it's not on the moon which is why we can see it. It's as brightly lit as a photo taken on a sunny day on the beach. By far and away the most common problem is over exposure.
 
...which of course is good for keeping your shutter speed fast enough (assuming spot metering) to stop it blurring as it moves relatively quickly across the sky...
 
What about a Moon video for a change?

An advantage of some Canon cameras (and other makes, I don't know) is that you can apply a 3x crop setting in video that doesn't impact the quality - it isn't a 'digital zoom'.
So my 250mm lens becomes a 750mm lens, and with 1.6 APS-C crop factor it becomes 1200mm



Click on Full Screen and it will default to HD
 
What about a Moon video for a change?

An advantage of some Canon cameras (and other makes, I don't know) is that you can apply a 3x crop setting in video that doesn't impact the quality - it isn't a 'digital zoom'.
So my 250mm lens becomes a 750mm lens, and with 1.6 APS-C crop factor it becomes 1200mm



Click on Full Screen and it will default to HD


Wow, assuming that's mounted steady, the amount of movement between the beginning and the end is great to see, i mean I know it always happens but i find that quite cool
 
Wow, assuming that's mounted steady, the amount of movement between the beginning and the end is great to see, i mean I know it always happens but i find that quite cool

Yes - it was just plonked on the tripod and pointing in a stationary position for the duration of the video.

Interesting how much you can see atmospheric conditions impacting it too.
 

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