Moon photography with my G12

[bugmenot]

Hello everyone...
Ages ago, I posted this thread, asking which camera I should buy, and finally I decided on (and earned enough to buy) a Canon G12. As you can see from that previous thread, one of my interests (although certainly not the sole reason I wanted a camera) was for moon photography.

If you care to check my previous thead, you'll see how my μ1010 fared at this task: pretty badly. So when I tried using my G12, cranked it up to maximum optical zoom (5x, which is less than my μ1010's 7x, but it is better in every other respect) following the instructions given before on these forums (negative exposure compensation, very low ISO, manual focus), and...didn't get very good results. In fact, all my images were blurry.

It was probably some issue with the focus. The fact that I am having trouble figuring out how to edit the RAW for maximum effect in the bundled "Digital Photo Professional" software that came with the camera, only compounded the problem.

So I'm asking, if anyone has any advice, hell, even if you can give me the exact settings, with which to photograph the moon with my G12 (considering I bet many of you also have a G12 or G11, and there is a full moon these days to test it on), I'll really appreciate it. And no, I don't have a tele-lens or whatever, and judging from this thread here, I'd figure it IS possible.

Unfortunately, I'm a total noob at photography, and while I have perused the manual, and am reading up on the stuff, I'd appreciate it if you could explain it in simple terms....for example, I do not know what "spot metering" or any sort of metering or bracketing is...

Thanks in advance!

[ceremus]

While the G12 is a very nice P&S camera, it wouldn't be my first choice to do moon photography. You can get your metering / exposure correct, focus it manually, and do everything right with it, but the major problem you're going to run into is the camera's limited focal length. Speaking in terms of 35mm equivalents, the G12 has a 28-140mm equivalent focal range. Generally speaking you need at least a 200mm focal length before you start getting decent detail shots of the moon's surface. Frankly, 300mm and longer is preferred.

If done correctly, this is about what you can expect from your G12.

Moon by Still_life88, on Flickr

Keep in mind the image is cropped to make the moon fill more of the frame.

Apparently, if you get the 1.4x teleconverter, it will increase your magnification to 196mm, which should bring out a bit more detail.

You might want to look into options that could attach the camera to a proper telescope or spotting scope, I don't know a whole lot in that area, especially not with a G series camera, but for sure it would give you a lot more in terms of magnification.

In terms of shooting the moon in general here's what you'll want to do. To make it easier, attach your camera to a tripod, point at the moon and zoom in as close as you can. You can digital zoom if you want, but you probably needn't bother, you're just going to want to crop the picture some when you post process anyway, they're the same thing. Set the camera to Manual mode. Set your ISO to a low number, 80 or 100. Adjust the shutter speed until the exposure of the moon looks correct on your viewscreen. You will probably need at least 1/100 to 1/200 speed before the moon stops looking like a big spotlight in the sky. You can experiment and adjust the aperture if you wish, if you use a narrower aperture (higher f number like 5.6 or 8) then you may get better sharpness. Keep in mind if you use a narrower aperture you'll need to adjust for a longer shutter speed to maintain the same exposure.