Night Shot of the Full Moon

[Sodaman420]

Hey there guys and gals, howsit goin'?
Tonight (feb 1) was a full moon, and i attempted to get a few pics of it. However, in all my pics, the moon came out overly bright and the rest of the picture a little too dark.
Any creative ideas/ tips to help out next time? Lens suggestions or other ideas very welcome. I wish to bring out the details of the moon as best I can.
Here's my equipment:
Nikon D80 +tripod
Nikon AF-S Nikor 18-70mm, F/3.5 lens
Thanks,
-Tony

[wulf]

I was trying exactly the same thing last night - I think your result is better than anything I got . One problem I had was that I was shooting from my back garden and I realised that, from the height of my tripod, I couldn't find many ways to frame the moon without other obstacles getting in the way. Sometimes, as with your shot above, that worked nicely, but wasn't what I was originally after.

I also realised that my lens (18-55 kit lens on a Nikon D40) doesn't zoom enough when the moon is just a small ball in the sky. If I'm going to get any decent moon shots, I'll have to wait for those times and seasons when it seems to hang lower and less brightly.

Wulf

[Nicole]

Originally Posted by Sodaman420

Hey there guys and gals, howsit goin'?
Tonight (feb 1) was a full moon, and i attempted to get a few pics of it. However, in all my pics, the moon came out overly bright and the rest of the picture a little too dark.
Any creative ideas/ tips to help out next time? Lens suggestions or other ideas very welcome. I wish to bring out the details of the moon as best I can.
Here's my equipment:
Nikon D80 +tripod
Nikon AF-S Nikor 18-70mm, F/3.5 lens

This website on Moon Photography does a pretty good job of explaining how to photograph the moon (that was a bit of a repetition there, sorry ).

If you want to bring out the detail of the moon, the thing that is often forgotten is that the moon is actually quite bright. So this means that you actually need a relatively short exposure, and can shoot handheld quite easily. The other thing that is helpful for getting the detail is to spot meter the moon rather than using matrix metering. This will help ensure that you don't over expose the moon because of the dark sky.

For lenses, that site above offers a pretty good idea of how each lens will do. You'll have to crop a lot unless you're using a telescope or a really long telephoto (more than 300mm). There's even a thread over in the technique area about Shooting the Moon.

For example, this shot:

was taken hand-held at 300mm, at 1/500 sec f/8.

Just some technical advice to answer that part of your question

By the way, I like your shot.

[RandomConnections]

If you want to avoid cropping a moon shot, and detail is not an issue, sometimes these diffuse shots work better, especially if you can frame them as you have with branches, etc.

[Jaysfan8]

Hello, I like how the moon highlights the tree. Have you thought about HDR? You may be able to enhance the image and get the detail of the moon using the under exposed shot and still keep the highlights with the overexposed image.

If you give it a go, let me know - would be interested in the result.

Cheers

[Sodaman420]

Hey there, Thanks for all the comments, I'm gonna check out that moon site
I was kinda guessing the zoom on my lens wouldn't be enough, but it's all I've got haha, so I hadd'a make do. Anyway, jaysfan, what is HDR? And I think next time, I will try spot metering
unfortunately, I wish I had asked this 24 hours earlier
lol
now I have to wait for another full moon

[wulf]

HDR = high dynamic range... you'll find it talked about on this site and elsewhere. The basic gist is that you combine several photos allowing you to have details in the shadows and highlights that normally get lost because cameras can't cope with the same dynamic range as our eyes.

Wulf

[Seltzer]

wow the small size really doesn't deliver what this image has to offer.. looks great at the larger size, might not hurt to do a small crop so the light is hitting all edges but not really required.. does it come in 1600x1200 so I can use it as a background?

[Sodaman420]

Seltzer, yes I can send this to you via AIM, MSN,yahoo messengers, or email if you like. I'm flattered you like it, thanks!
If you plan on doing some photoshop, send it back so i can see how it turns out
JustPM me your email

[Seltzer]

well that's what I get for being a minamilist but it would make a great background at work since it's simple and will look good on the desktop formatting there.