Bob Atkins- I need you to tell me how to shoot the moon!

[grear_howard]

My question comes on the heels of this lunar eclipse. I have spent some frustrating time this evening

attempting to shoot the full moon- not necessarily the eclipse. I have a Canon XT with a Sigma 70-300

lens on a tripod and for the life of me, I cannot get a focused shot. What am I doing wrong? The images

come out as either white balls or non-focused smears. I shot with slow shutter speeds and then as fast as

the camera would let me before it would lock and not take the picture (probably I'm doing something

wrong there). What do I need to do??

[Hector Javkin]

Bob is one of our leaders on photo.net, but anybody can take a photograph of the moon. Part of the problem is exposure you're having is exposure, you're probably going way over. That will definitely happen if you're using auto exposure and your meter is looking at a big expanse of black sky. Meter manually. If you're using 100 ISO, start with f/11 at 1/100 and bracket (take additional shots at more and less exposure) around that. It's in the sun, so that could be f/16, but we think of the moon as brighter than the gray rock it is, so f/11 is a good middle spot. Get your focusing spot right on the moon, or focus manually.

 

If you're still having trouble, start out with 70mm rather than 300mm, and see what happens.

[Hector Javkin]

That second sentence should have been, "Part of the problem you're having is exposure, you're probably going way over."

[grear_howard]

Hector-

Thank you for your able help. I took your advice and while the moon was still out, I was able

to get some acceptable shots. I need to quit believing my camera and start listening to the

guys that know- like you!

Many thanks!

Grear

[bobatkins]

Take a look at http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/tutorials/lunar_eclipse_photography.html

 

You should probably have the camera on a tripod, certainly for the eclipsed moon. For the full moon you don't really need a tripod since shutter speeds should be quite high. However I'd shoot at at least 1/500s if you want to handhold a 300mm lens on a Canon XT, and 1/1000s wouldn't hurt. The shots on the page linked to above were taken handheld at 1/800s, but I also had image stabilization on the lens.

 

Focus with a 300mm lens should not be a problem as long as you can keep one of the AF zones over the moon. Obviously you need one shot AF, not servo.

 

A tripod is my primary advice though. You will need one for the eclipse.

[pvp]

<I>how to shoot the moon!</I><P>

 

Take all the hearts plus the queen of spades...

[colinsouthern]

"Take all the hearts plus the queen of spades..."

 

Spoken like a true card sharp!

[15sunrises]

Thanks for the link Bob, hopefully it'll get clear tonight so I can get some shots.

[garydem]

to take a picture of the moon you need-

 

long lens 1000mm(35mm equivelent) about.

high iso(800?) to force afaster shutter speed.

exposure-the moon, odd as it sounds is hign noon sunlit. just like noon on earth. we are 240000 miles to moon, BUT earth or moon is 93000000 miles to sun. that determines exposure. as other replyer stated use sunny 16 rule. that is for a full moon 1/iso at f16. then bracket like crazy. shoot a very hign shutter speed to start, take more than 1 shot at each shutter speed(3) then go down to about 1/30sec.

use stong tripod.

use cable shutter release or self timer. if self timer this will take a while, and you will have to keep adjusting moon in viewfinder.

Use mirror lockup if your camera has it.

Turn IS,VR,SR off, your camera is on a tripod.

DO NOT TRUST LIGHT METER IN CAMERA. it is being fooled by all the black sky. even spot meter, if available will not help, it won't go small enough to get moon only. moon is only 1/2degree wide, smaller than any spot meter.

get away from city. turbulance and lights are bad news.

if 1000mm or so not available, use biggest available. crop in post-processing.

not as good as big lens but will work.

shoot many pics, you can always delete later.

 

happy moon pics. good luck.

also-

sunny 16 rule-

i/iso is shutter speed. if iso is 100 then shutter speed is 1/100about.

fstop is 16.0.

the f stop is f16. this a starting point. any lens is not at max sharpness at f16, so adjust fstop to f8 or f11, and move shutter acccordingly.

check moonrise times in your area. you want about 3 hours after moonrise to start your pic taking. this gives the moon time to get far enough above the horizon to clear the horizontal atmosphere and turbelance.

you also need crystal clear skys. NO rpt NO haze, clouds, or humidity. humidity is noticable if you have corana around the moon, this could also be haze. in which case shoot on another night.

happy moon pics.

 

gary

second reply-

on the subject of lenses-

i use the bigma(sigma50-500+1.4converter). a smaller lenses will work, you just have to crop. but, if cropping heavily do not expect a lot of detail, you just won't get it. though remember any lens is multiplied by the crop factor. so your 135 becomes about 200-205mm.

i shoot at iso800 and at f8.0 end up at about200th-400th of a sec. when start taking the shot i start at 1/1000 and go down to about a 1/30. i also shoot three shots at each shutter speed, thus increasing the odds of getting a good one somewhere in the bunch. i expect to hit the good shots as stated at about 200th-400th.

do not shoot if high humidity or haze or any kind of atmosspheric turbelence. it just is a waste of memory and time. i shot originally in a park in Detroit michigan on what i thought was a clear night, forget it. i actually got some good pics 200 miles north on the shore of Lake Huron. much better.

0ne thought, if available you can try putting a 2X converter on the lens, that would get to over 400mm. there are also several moon pic takers that use more than i converter. 2 2Xs or a 2X and a 1.4. it sound odd but the results are worth it. they are better than the crop heavy method.

do not underestimate how bright a 3/4 or just under full is in terms of brightness. it equal to highnoon on a cloudless day in the summer.

focus-

put lens on manual focus. then put it on infinity(assuming lens does not focus past infinity,some do) or manual focus.

f16.0 comes from the rule of 16. it is the starting point. if you want f8.0, as i use, then you move the shutter speed accordingly to get back to the EV. it is 1/iso for shutter speed under rule of 16. for f8.0 and iso500, for example, you move 2stops or 1/125. at iso500 the shutter speed is 1/500.

by the way, the above set of instructions work, i just got back from oscoda michigan, i live in detroit, used the same instructions, it worked.

also, with my setup: pentax *istD, bigma50-500 at 500, 2x converter, this gives 35mm equiv of 1500mm. the moon's size is almost exactly 1/2 of the short side of the frame. in other words, you need all the telephoto power you can get.

 

<div></div>

[bobatkins]

Not that all the advice in the post above relates to shots of the unecliped moon.

 

Given the dimness of the eclipsed moon and the already slow speed of most telephoto lenses, adding a multiplier probably isn't a good idea unless you are starting out with a fast lens. Remember that the longer the lens, the shorter the allowable exposure time without blurring. So if you add a 2x TC your required shutter speed will be 2x shorter (e.g. 1s to 1/2s) and you'll lose 2 stops of light (e.g. f5.6 to f11), meaning you'd have to boost ISO by 3 stops (e.g. ISO 400 to ISO 3200) to compensate. Not to mention the loss in optical quality that a 2x TC gives with most lenses.

[skipper34]

Bob, correct me but the previous poster gave an exposure of 1/iso @ f16, in other words, sunny 16 rule. Shouldn't this have been 1/iso @ f11? This is usually the standard exposure for full moon shots, I believe. Then bracket up and down from there, correct?

[bobatkins]

Yes, sunnny f11 is usually closer. The average color/reflectivity of the lunar suface is a dull grey (about 12% reflection I think). To make it look bright you have to open up a stop or so from the "sunny f16" rule.

[garydem]

just checked my original shots. the exposure for the bigma at 500m with 1.4x converter was 1/125, iso800, at an indicated f8.0 on the lens. with 2x converter was 1/250, iso800, at an indicated f8.0 on the lens.

please note i am shooting a full range starting at 1/1000 to 1/30. at an indicated f8.0 and iso800. the shots i used were the above. shots used were cropped so that moon mostly fills frame and auto levels in pe6. in selecting the shots it is a combo of the sharpness and general light level to determine which used.

 

note the moon at 1500mm equiv(the 2x converter) fills 1/2 the short side.

[grear_howard]

Thank you all! Bob- thank you especially for your expert advice! Of course, tonight the moon

is no where to be found. I think the clouds have won the night. I am keeping all of these

responders' sage advice for clearer nights. I hope I have asked a question that a number of

people have wondered, but not posted.

[bobatkins]

Well it cleared up nicely in the NYC area and we're getting a good show. Looks like around 0.5s at f5.6 and ISO 400 is good at this point (the eclipse has just gone total).

[bobatkins]

Sample:<div></div>

[winn]

I'm getting some shots, I won't know if they are any good until tomorrow when I get a chance to download them. We just got a break here in the weather - it went from 6deg F to 7deg F. Maybe someone will post a shot tonight....

[winn]

Oops...I didn't update my page in time. Excellent shot!

[bobatkins]

Guess what that bright "star" is just to the left of the moon.

 

Here's a hint (shot with a 500mm lens + 1.4x TC)<div></div>

[winn]

Wow! That's amazing. I'm going to have to invest in some glass, whether a telescope with an adapter or a high power lens. My night is over, the Moon just went behind some clouds.

[bobatkins]

I was quite surprised that the lens would show Saturn's rings, but it does. Here's a slightly better shot taken using a 4" f5 refractor telescope via eyepiece projection.<div></div>

[winn]

I could get the general shape of Saturn with my 70-300mm lens,but nothing worth posting...

[pldove]

Too little too late: Registax is another thing to try if you're running Swodniw - or can get it running under Whine. Registax is a free but very feature-rich and just plain neato program takes a huge stack of images and does all kinds of fancy signal processing to squeeze out the last little bit of detail. With even 300mm, you'll get enough image scale to show atmospheric turbulence distorting the Moon from frame to frame with short exposures, and with longer exposures of the dim eclipsed Moon, the software can tease out small-scale detail from the air-blurred longer exposures (but won't help with trailing due to Earth's rotation).

[tim_huggins]

Y'all must be using some pretty old cameras if you have a shutter speed setting of 1/100s (Well, either that or one of those newfangled digithingys!). My best results have been with f8 at 1/125s, 100ISO film. f11 is definately too dark and the subtle detail is lost. Perhaps closing down 1/3 stop more would be "just perfect", but that's not an option on a 500mm mirror lens :-(.