Taking pics of the moon (HELP)

[xjock58]

I have a 20D and 70 200 2.8 IS and a strudy tripod. Why can't iI get a picture of the moon the has detail and not some white blob?I have used settings up and down the scale . ISO from 100 to 800 F's from low to high. Speed from long to short. Help???? Is there something I'm missing .

[mjs1973]

How are you exposing your shots? When I take shots of the moon, I under expose by up to 2 stops depending on what type of meeter reading I'm using. If I spot meeter, I don't have to under expose as much as if I'm using a center weighted average reading. I set the ISO to 100 and the f/ stop somewhere in the f/9 range, give or take a stop or two.

Good luck and keep trying.

[another view]

You'll have to either shoot in manual mode or an auto mode using some exposure compensation. When you're in an auto mode, closing down the aperture or increasing the ISO or adjusting anything else is just counteracted by another setting. For example, at ISO100, f4 and 1/30 - if you change to f8 then the shutter speed will change to 1/8. This gives you the same exposure, which is still too much.

This is happening because the moon is very bright and the sky is very dark. It's a hard situation for the camera's meter to handle, and it's giving you an exposure that it thinks is correct. The difference between relying on auto and learning manual is that either you get what the camera thinks you want, or you get what you want.

[Lemming51]

The camera meter will overexpose in auto modes because the bright moon is a relatively small object in a field of black sky. The meter sets exposure to render that black sky as 18% gray.

The moon is being lit by full sun and should be exposed for that ==> use "Sunny 16" or "Moony 11". Start with f/16 or f/11 and shutter speed 1/ISO, and bracket exposures.

[chu_bun]

I had the same problem and here was what I did. Select full manual mode. Set the apeture to f/9. I thought (incorrectly?) the image is "flat", DOF was not important so any F number should do, and just pick a "safe" number. Then start increase the shutter speed. The image showed some detail around 1/400s. At 1/500s it looked even better. I was distracted and did not finish the experiment. On the next full moon, I'll try "moony 11".

[photophorous]

The key to remember is that it's daylight on the moon.

I just finished some experimentation with moon shots, and I can say, starting at f11 and 1/ISO speed is the way to go (I used 1/125 with 100 ISO) . In my case, I was up in the mountains in Utah, where the air was very clean and the moon was full and very bright. It overexposed at these settings, but not by much. So, start there and bracket. You'll need a little longer exposure for a less than full moon.

Good luck and have fun!

Paul

[drg]

I have a 20D and 70 200 2.8 IS and a strudy tripod. Why can't iI get a picture of the moon the has detail and not some white blob?I have used settings up and down the scale . ISO from 100 to 800 F's from low to high. Speed from long to short. Help???? Is there something I'm missing .

I posted this in the past couple of weeks and the discussion might help? Also included there are the settings I used.

Astrophotography-The Moon

The Moony 11 rule is not bad to start with, but I prefer a spot or center weighted meter and then underexpose by 2 or more stops. Don't use a very long shutter speed, the moon will move on you. You don't really need a very long exposure, the comment about it being daytime on the moon is very true.

You might consider turning off the IS function. I've had the same lens play tricks at much longer than 1/10th of a second.

The resulting photo's may still need contrast adjustment. If you have a good RAW conversion program to handle the files, try shooting RAW and tweak the contrast and the luminance (noise). At first you might even consider the b/w mode or convert (the simple way with remove color) to see what you really have.

Are you using a timed release, remote, or trying to do it manually? That might jiggle things just enough. Good luck and let see your results.