[fekish]

Hello,

I tried to photograph the full moon tonight with a tripod, however it was a total disaster!

In all photos the moon comes just like a white ball... and I really tried almost all combinations of ISO and exposure!

Any recommendations? I was using 300mm Tamron.

Thanks in advance!

[Nowhere Matt]

Hello,

I tried to photograph the full moon tonight with a tripod, however it was a total disaster!

In all photos the moon comes just like a white ball... and I really tried almost all combinations of ISO and exposure!

Any recommendations? I was using 300mm Tamron.

Thanks in advance!
Sent from Motorola Milestone using Tapatalk

Your shutter speed was most likely to slow. The moon is pretty bright and the camera's metering will fool you often. Try 1/250 at f11 ISO 200 to get you in the ballpark.

I wanted to test a few lenses handheld last night myself, so here you go.
SMC Pentax F 100-300mm f8 1/500 ISO 200 with some cropping and processing


Five Star 500mm f11 1/250 at ISO 400. Again some slight cropping and perhaps a bit too much post processing


Did I mention those were both handheld? Normally I shoot the moon with camera, lens and a teleconverter mounted to a tripod and a little lower settings.
F16, 1/10 ISO 400 (Two 2x tc's mind you) This one is not cropped or processed from April.


You can also search the forum for many other useful bits of information when shooting for the moon.
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-slr-lens-discussion/46612-shooting-moon.html
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/general-photography/105988-how-do-you-tak...ures-moon.html
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/post-your-photos/21085-february-moon-feel...oon-shots.html
This forum is full of great members eager to help and inspire you to become better at photography.
See, here comes another one right now.

[interested_observer]

Hi, I have been successful, but it was a learning experience - with some practice. As Matt indicated, shutter speed is important. At 300mm it is surprising how fast the moon actually moves. However, at least for me, the most important thing was to meter in the spot mode (I would think that is the source for your "white balll" results. This way, the light meter is solely on the moon and not averaging across the frame. Then, I use the program mode, finding a good combination of shutter speed and aperture. Also, I tend to move the ISO from my normal 100 up to about 400 in order to help with a faster shutter.

The other thing I stumbled on is not to shoot a full moon. Something in between gets you some additional interesting features, especially in terms of shadows and some improved details along the terminator. It also has a lower reflection of light - thus not quite as bright and that I believe helps with some details. Also, I experiment a bit with the settings, then take the SD card in to the house, download quickly and see what it looks like on the large monitor. I find that helps a lot.

Now, after saying all of that, I was out this morning trying to shoot the sun rise - and the best thing out was the moon. I was not able to find a good location before it sunk in behind the clouds.

[Ex Finn.]

Got one this morning, not very good seeing.
900mm f 7,5 refractor and K7, prime focus. 50% crop.
Manual exposure is the best way to do it.
ISO 100, 1/160 second, f 7,5 obviously.

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Last edited by Ex Finn.; 11-11-2014 at 05:50 PM.

[Ex Finn.]

Here is the same image, no crop, saved as quality 9 in ps.
What you see is what the sensor saw. Minus the reduced quality to get the file size down.
So, it just takes practice, don't be afraid to turn them dials, do some experimenting, not burning film here.

[fekish]

Thanks for the tips, i will attach some images i shot last night!

I finally managed to do it, thank to your tips

Of course with 300mm, the details are not shown as the pictures above...

[Ex Finn.]

100% crop from DA 55-300.
ISO 200, f9, 1/200 second.

[Nowhere Matt]

Got one this morning, not very good seeing.
900mm f 7,5 refractor and K7, prime focus. 50% crop.
Manual exposure is the best way to do it.
ISO 100, 1/160 second, f 7,5 obviously.

This one is so good, Finn.

I am going to shoot some tonight and set my alarm and get up early and shoot some more.
I need to do more tests with my Five Star 500 and make sure where it's focus is. This lens suddenly has me suspicious of infinity focus. It is just long enough that handholding does not allow me to closely judge it focus point and I struggle to get in a good position while the lens is tripod mounted to fine tune the focus. I often just assume that infinity focus for this lens is as sharp as it goes for the moon.

[Ex Finn.]

Thanks for the tips, i will attach some images i shot last night!

I finally managed to do it, thank to your tips

Of course with 300mm, the details are not shown as the pictures above...

No, but 300 mm can produce good images, just watch for TBA.

[opiet70]

I always try to zoom the picture as much as possible on my K10D. The rear wheel zooms in pretty well. That way, I can see what combination is providing the best results.

[fekish]

Hello,

these are my photos...

Not even close to be as good as yours, but actually they are my frst moon photos
My experience and also the lens, returned these awful results!

[Ex Finn.]

Did you shoot hand held?. #3 looks pretty good. you need to try bracketing your exposure maybe.

[Nowhere Matt]

Yeah they look a little out of focus and perhaps need a little longer shutter speed.
I don't know your lens very well but on my tiny iPod viewing screen, these images look slightly out of focus and dark.
Exposure bracketing is a good suggestion. Make sure your camera's metering is in Center Weighted or Spot. Even with a 300mm you should be able to get a sharper image than this.
And like someone else said, keep trying and changing shutter speeds. Nothing is lost but inexperience. Many have taken not so good pictures of the moon and look at ours now.

Edit:
Just to further illustrate our suggestions and help inspire you.
Here a a few from what might now be an average quality dslr and an average quality lens. These were taken just about an hour ago with my K10 and SMC F 100-300mm. The first is an uncropped, unedited image at 1/350, f11, iso 400

This one is a crop of a similar image still with no other edits and at the same settings

These were with the camera mounted to a tripod and using a remote to trigger the shutter though really at those speeds using your finger would most likely make little difference unless your tripod is made from Fuzzoodles.
Keep having fun with it.


(Exif reports Spot Metering, the lens type as "smc PENTAX-F 100-300mm F4.5-5.6 or Sigma Lens" and the temperature was 12 C)

[martyd14]

This is my second attempt at the moon. Using a K-x with a Tamron 75-300mm Di at 300mm, 1/400s, F9 at ISO 400 using Tri-pod and a wireless trigger and 100% Crop.

[Squier]

My attempts nearly match Ex Finns photos

I use the lowest ISO, which is 100, and keep the shutter speed at least 1/160 or above ( remember the moon is always moving ).

For this particullar shot
I used a 600mm lens @ f7.5 ISO 100 and 1/200th , Tripod and 2 second MLU, remote cable fire