Shooting the moon - advice needed

[bkatz]

I am looking for advice for shooting the moon. I tried tonight with my 18-200mm lens at 200mm and got a lot of flare/ghosts - took off my filter and still had some ghosting.

Looking for some advice on the best way to shoot at night directly at the moon.:scratch

Tried searching dgrin and found great moon shots but no advice on how they were gotten.

Thanks in advance:thumb

[moose135]

Just shot this the other night. Canon 30D and 100-400L, shot at 1/400 sec, f/7.1, ISO 100, 390mm, handheld. Watch your exposure - since the moon is reflecting daylight, it's brighter than you think. If you are overexposing, it could be the cause of some of the flare/ghosting you are seeing.

http://moose135.smugmug.com/photos/246069318-L.jpg

[playersbabe]

just want to say...WOW! that is an amazing shot!:bow

[Zanotti]

I am looking for advice for shooting the moon. I tried tonight with my 18-200mm lens at 200mm and got a lot of flare/ghosts - took off my filter and still had some ghosting.

Looking for some advice on the best way to shoot at night directly at the moon.:scratch

Tried searching dgrin and found great moon shots but no advice on how they were gotten.

Thanks in advance:thumb



http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/3762805


Z

[Zanotti]

http://digitalgrin.com/showthread.php?t=79907


Z

[Zanotti]

http://digitalgrin.com/showthread.php?t=79424


Z

[z_28]

I'm not moon shooting or even shining expert :wink
But from my experiences 200mm is way too short.
300mm with crop is absolute minimum, preferably 400mm+
with crop and good TC if in hands.
Exposure at 100-200 ISO, full manual only
Tripod or solid base
Anyway lens optical quality is a clue in addition to all above.
Good Luck :thumb
Z


I am looking for advice for shooting the moon. I tried tonight with my 18-200mm lens at 200mm and got a lot of flare/ghosts - took off my filter and still had some ghosting.

Looking for some advice on the best way to shoot at night directly at the moon.:scratch

Tried searching dgrin and found great moon shots but no advice on how they were gotten.

Thanks in advance:thumb

[SloYerRoll]

I'm amazed no one has coughed up this link yet:

http://www.shaystephens.com/moon_calc.php

[bkatz]

I'm amazed no one has coughed up this link yet:

http://www.shaystephens.com/moon_calc.php
Jon - great page. I will try it tonight.

Z -

Thanks for the advice - I will see how they come out tonight.

[Pilznr]

Bkatz, I've found the same thing that moose did. The moon is a lot brighter than you think, so watch your exposure. I feel like I had a better chance at getting less flare with a f/9 ish. I also think you need something more than a 200mm lens for a clear shot of the moon.

Thanks for the moon exposure calculator link. That's great.

Moose, thanks for sharing your moon shot. Good job on capturing the Cat Anus at the bottom. (sorry, was that too gross?)

I only have a 300mm lens and I have trouble getting the whole moon in focus like moose did. Any advice for that other than buying a bigger lens?

Here's my gallery of moon shots.
http://pilznr.smugmug.com/gallery/3557694#201592973
I just can't seem to get them as in focus as I'd like.

[LiquidAir]

I shot this using a 3.5inch refracting telescope the other night. I just took the eyepiece out telescope, the the lens off the camera, and hand held the camera in the focal plane of the objective. It a bit like shooting macros--you rock back and forth to focus. The telescope I used is roughly a 1000mm f/11 lens. This is cropped; when the weather gets better here I am going to try again with a 1.4TC on the camera which should both fill the frame with the moon and prevent dust bunnies on my sensor.

http://gallery.liquidairphoto.com/photos/246978325-L.jpg

[Nikolai]

For the last couple of years I've been using 100-400 + 1.4 combo.
You can see the variety of shots here (http://nik.smugmug.com/gallery/884221) and pick for yourself.
The idea is moon is simply sunlit object, and as such there is nothing wrong with using plain "cloudy f/8" (or "cloudy f/10") rule (it would be even f/12, but I have to compensate for TC).

[bkatz]

Thank you all for the advice.

The good news :clap- I went out tonight with my 70-300mm VR and had no troubles whatsoever getting shots handheld.
Shay's calculator made it even easier - Thanks for the link Jon.

The bad news :huh - I need longer glass - I had to crop this big time to enlarge it.

http://photos.katzclix.com/photos/247041802-L.jpg

[SannD]

This is how I got some pretty good shots of the moon. I laid my camera on top of our telescope aiming it into the telescope lens. The camera was a little Kodak easyshare- nothing fancy but it did a zoom but I took some with and some without zoom. I made sure I could see the shot through the lens of the camera and made sure I held the camera real still. I then took about 2 to 3 dozen pictures or more. Most were pretty good. I couldn't believe it myself. Go to www.shirleyann.smugmug.com and see for yourself.
Is it ok if I put me link here? Sorry if not and I won't do it again. I am new. This is my first post at dgrin. Hope this helps someone.

SannD

[pathfinder]

Tripod, cable release, Mirror lock up.

200mm is really pretty short for good moon shots....Sorry, but its true.

Googling Shoot the moon pathfinder --> http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=154497 ---> http://www.digitalgrin.com/showthread.php?p=1297536 --> http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=104706

( added edit - I see Zanotti has beat me to some of these. Hi George.:thumb )


It helps to remember the moon is a sunlit object, and hence basically gets the same exposure as someone standing in bright sunlight (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=30235). Your camera will not expose the moon correctly, when shot in the automatic modes, it must be placed in Manual Mode.


Here is a frame of the moon and Jupiter to demonstrate how they compare in size..... It was shot with a 300mm lens as that was the longest lens that would capture both the moon and Jupiter at the same time and they were quite close in the sky that night.

http://pathfinder.smugmug.com/Other/A-Collection-of-Night-Shots/Moon-Jupiter-framed-5401/3390724_SHtTB-XL.jpg

[pathfinder]

I'm amazed no one has coughed up this link yet:

http://www.shaystephens.com/moon_calc.php

This link no longer seems to work which is really too bad, I liked that link too.