Shoot the moon

[RexK_Cozumel]

Anyone know how to get better detail when taking photos of the moon? Other than getting a huge telephoto.

[Nicole]

What were you using to shoot the moon? Settings, I mean.
A 70-300mm lens doesn't do too badly, but it still needs to be cropped.
Another trick is to remember that the moon is pretty bright, so it doesn't need a very long exposure. Spot meter the moon, and that should give you a better reading.
There's also a thread on this called Shooting the Moon

[RexK_Cozumel]

I was using a tamron set at 300 with f stop at 6.3 and shutter speed at 80. The moon was not very bright kinda a yellowish orange as you can see from the pic. Cropped the picture down of course. I also shot at some different f stops and shutter speeds but still not much detail. I was looking at the thread and the other shots and I notice a lot better detail in those pics.

[Nicole]

When I shoot the moon, well the last time I did so at least, I used f/8 and 1/500 sec then sharpened the heck out of it. I think the sharpening helps a lot once you actually get a pretty clear shot. I think that maybe if your shutter speed had been a bit faster it would be easier to get some detail out of it.

I don't think that this link necessarily relates 100%, but I found this article on the Color of the Moon really interesting. Now, for a better link on understanding photographing the moon, try this How To Guide on Moon Photography which gives some tips on shutter speed based on the phase of the moon or even this article on Tips on Photographing the Moon. Good luck, it takes some experimenting, but eventually it will get there.

Oh yeah, and just to add, I do like the colour on that moon shot. Maybe try some sharpening and see if that helps at all.

I hope this is ok, I just had a quick try at trying to bring out some of the detail. I'll remove this if you'd like.



What I did:
Using photoshop, I sharpened using Unsharp Mask at 50% and 50px.
I then duplicated the layer and used the Find Edges filter and set the layer to Multiply with 80% opacity.
I think that it's got a little bit more detail, but perhaps with some more detailed work you could get rid of some of the noise that makes it look a bit strange with the Find edges filter.

Anyways, just one way to try to bring out a little bit more detail, though using different settings is probably a better option

[sdjl]

I try to use a tripod and mirror lock up when shooting things like the moon.
I find that when zoomed out to such a distance, movement by the cameras mirror flicking up when taking the shot results in some motion blur.

If you have a remote shutter release cable too, this stops your hands from causing slight movement of the camera also. You can alternatively use timer mode to trigger the shutter after 10 seconds.

David

[RexK_Cozumel]

Hey everyone thanks for all the help. I did use a tripod for that shot but didn't think about using the mirror lock up function it was more a spur of the moment shoot. I was at work and just thought the moon looked cool down at the horizen and that yellowish orange color so I ran to my car to get my tripod. Tried some shots handheld but had way too much caffine for that to happen....

Oh and I dont mind if you edit/repost my pictures as long as you tell me what you did so I can learn. I dont do much if any post processing on my photos.. mainly because I need a better computer but have been too lazy/busy to get one.