Shooting the Moon

[GeekSikh]

I have a Canon 100-400mm f/4 lens for a few weeks and fired a couple of shots trying to capture the Moon on my Canon XSi (APSC Crop) Camera and got bright blobs of white with flare to boot. My guess would be going for faster shutter speed and f/8 or higher. I do have Polarizer and Graduated ND .6 filters if that helps.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Gurvinder Singh

[angevin1]

I have a Canon 100-400mm f/4 lens for a few weeks and fired a couple of shots trying to capture the Moon on my Canon XSi (APSC Crop) Camera and got bright blobs of white with flare to boot. My guess would be going for faster shutter speed and f/8 or higher. I do have Polarizer and Graduated ND .6 filters if that helps.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Gurvinder Singh


Moon=bright reflective object.

use low ISO Meter off the center point of the orb, stir to taste.

My guess? 200 ISO, f/9 1/125th,

Additionally, mirror lock-up, tripod, and timer.

[ziggy53]

Trying to use a meter for the moon will not be very accurate. The moon has a relatively constant illumination so it's best to use manual exposure.

Canon dRebel XT, ISO 200, 500mm Vivitar f6.3 lens (M42 screwmount, manual focus) at f8 plus Tamron 1.4x-F teleconverter (taped), 1/400 sec, RAW processed through RSE to 16 bit TIFF, TIFF cropped to 1127x1127, upressed, processed and then Green channel extracted and curves applied, USM. Downressed to 800x800 for viewing. So my effective exposure was ISO 200, f11, 1/400th.

http://ziggy53.smugmug.com/photos/100412283-D.jpg

[craig_d]

Metering on the moon works okay IF you spot meter. Anything resembling center-weighted average obviously won't work right because you'll be metering 95% dark night sky against 5% bright moon, resulting in an exposure such as the OP describes. But Ziggy is right that manual is really the way to go, because once you've figured out the right exposure you can just use it forever. Since moonlight is just reflected sunlight, straight Sunny 16 works pretty well: f/16, shutter speed 1/ISO. You also want to keep the shutter time down because the moon actually moves surprisingly fast when you're zoomed in on it with a 400mm+ lens.

[kdog]

Canon 400mm F5.6 lens, two TC1.4X extenders, ISO200, 1/80 sec, F11. Manual focus via LiveView, good tripod.

Processing is pretty much just a bit of sharpening, and maybe a bit of highlights reduction. Full size, sorry, too lazy to resize right now.
http://www.jacara.com/cpg144/albums/az_landscape/IMG_9261.jpg

[craig_d]

Note that Ziggy's and kdog's exposures are both roughly equivalent to Sunny 16:

Ziggy: "So my effective exposure was ISO 200, f11, 1/400th." Which is the same level of exposure as ISO 200, f/16, 1/200 sec. = Sunny 16.

kdog: "two TC1.4X extenders, ISO200, 1/80 sec, F11". The two 1.4x extenders take a stop of light each, so without the extenders he could have shot at ISO 200, f/16, 1/160 sec., which is Sunny 16 +1/3 stop.

[kdog]

kdog: "two TC1.4X extenders, ISO200, 1/80 sec, F11". The two 1.4x extenders take a stop of light each, so without the extenders he could have shot at ISO 200, f/16, 1/160 sec., which is Sunny 16 +1/3 stop.
Actually, I already accounted for the extenders, Craig. The aperture was set to F5.6. So I'm a couple of stops hotter than Sunny 16. I find that Sunny 16 underexposes the moon for me.

The EXIF info on that previous shot is confused because of the taped pins. Here's a newer shot with correct EXIF. Same setup but with a single untaped TC1.4X.

ISO100, 1/100s, F8, 560mm.

http://desertilluminations.com/Sky/Astrophotography/IMG8929/632361238_m4A4g-X2-1.jpg

Pathfinder and I have had this discussion before. I always seem to shoot the moon much hotter than most folks. Seems to produce nice shots though? :dunno To me, Ziggy's shot appears to have a lot of noise.

[ziggy53]

... To me, Ziggy's shot appears to have a lot of noise.

There is some noise, but most of the grain is from the processing I did to the image. The way I processed I threw out the red and blue channels completely. I don't recommend it as a process because of the increased grain, but it did solve the chrominance issues I was having with that particular lens and converter. (The converter is not made for the lens, but that's what I had available to use at the time.)

The image is from 2006 and I would do things a lot differently today. (I suppose that means that I should get busy and do another image of the moon.)

[kdog]

Gotcha. Yeah, there's no substitute for having good glass. The Canon 400mm F5.6 is a really good lens. To the OP, good copies of the 100-400 can give great results as well.