shot of the moon?

[Omar Tayfour]

hi,im kinda new here,ive read lots of posts and watched alot of assigments over the past few months and think this site is amazing,helped me learn alot of stuff before i get my first dslr.
now i got the nikon d90 and getting used to it,thing is: ive been always curious about those clear pictures i see of the moon,and have no clue how eople took it,i tried taking some with my P&S before,and now with my d90 but i have asulotly no clue on how to pull it off.
soooooooooooo, any advice?

[SwissJon]

You'll need 3 things.. A long lens.. 400mm or more, a tripod, a remote shutter release.. With those you should be able to get a decent shot.. Make sure you meter the exposure for the moon, not the night sky, the exposures I've made have been between 1/60s and 1/250s .

[Omar Tayfour]

ohhhhh ok, in taht case i guess ill wait some time to save up for the 400 mm because currently all i have is 18-55,24-70 and 18-200,atleast now i know its due to lack of right equipment, thanks

[SwissJon]

You might get a reasonable one on your 18-200 at full zoom, but it won't be nearly as nice, because you'll need to heavily crop it.

There's other bits of kit that might help.. You can get camera mounts for many telescopes, or get a mirrored 500+ mm f/8 lens for a reasonable price, it's not much good for other things, but shots of the moon it'll manage.

Remember that the best photos are taken from observatories, on the tops of mountains where the air is clear, there's little heat haze, and they have HUGE telescopes.. I think that last one is probably the most important

[Biomech]

Your D90 is an APS-C sensor, so whatever your lenses say, add about 50% to them to get the 35mm equiv. So your 18-200mm at full zoom is actually 300mm. The moon moves surprisingly fast - you can watch it move if you can get in close enough.

I shot these at around 300mm, if the moon is coming out bright white, just keep stopping down. Maybe go manual at ... 1/125 and keep adjusting the aperture until it looks right (or vice versa) - keep checking the screen. Personally, I find the mirror slam makes all the bloody shake to blur it. Use a tripod and if you dont have a remote release, put on the self timer. I don't know about the D90 but my a580's 2 second timer actually moves the mirror before its ready to shoot which helps. You will have to crop, but after apply some sharpening and contrast and it's not too bad. I'd love to get REALLY close, but for me, it's not worth spending the money on the kit.


The Moon by C-17, on Flickr

[jamesev]

Originally Posted by Biomech

Your D90 is an APS-C sensor, so whatever your lenses say, add about 50% to them to get the 35mm equiv. So your 18-200mm at full zoom is actually 300mm. The moon moves surprisingly fast - you can watch it move if you can get in close enough.

I shot these at around 300mm, if the moon is coming out bright white, just keep stopping down. Maybe go manual at ... 1/125 and keep adjusting the aperture until it looks right (or vice versa) - keep checking the screen. Personally, I find the mirror slam makes all the bloody shake to blur it. Use a tripod and if you dont have a remote release, put on the self timer. I don't know about the D90 but my a580's 2 second timer actually moves the mirror before its ready to shoot which helps. You will have to crop, but after apply some sharpening and contrast and it's not too bad. I'd love to get REALLY close, but for me, it's not worth spending the money on the kit.


The Moon by C-17, on Flickr

How would you go about using an 18% grey card with shooting the moon. I just can't get it close enough to the subject to get a reasonable reading into my camera

[SwissJon]

Originally Posted by jamesev

How would you go about using an 18% grey card with shooting the moon. I just can't get it close enough to the subject to get a reasonable reading into my camera

You wouldn't.. You just stop down, click, look at the photo, stop down, click, look until you get to the exposure you want.

I took this at 280mm (300mm is soft on the lens I was using) at f/10 1/13s using a tripod and remote release.. This was on an A55, so there was no mirror slap.. If I had taken it on my Nikon, I'd have had to use the MUp function.. This photo was over exposed, I recon I coulda got another 2/3rds of a stop out of it, but really what I should have done is open the lens and change the ISO to 1/400 or even 1/800 and then I'd have had a much faster shot, hence much clearer and more detailed.. We live and learn.. This is heavily cropped. But Biomech is right.. I had to keep moving to keep the moon on the horizon like this (the trees were about 3km away)



I've just bought a cheapy 800mm mirror lens from fleabay.. I don't expect it to be much good for anything else, but I'm after some decent shots of the moon, and 800mm on a cropped sensor gives me 1200mm in practice.. Even if it's soft, it's got almost 3x magnification over the 300mm lens so on a calm night, if I can get up the mountain and above the thermo layer, it should end up with a better image than the 300mm.. And this thing was only £100.. We'll see, I'll post the results..

[Mike367]

Originally Posted by jamesev

How would you go about using an 18% grey card with shooting the moon. I just can't get it close enough to the subject to get a reasonable reading into my camera

The moon is actually lit by full direct sunlight, so use the sunny 16 rule ( f16@ 1/ISO )to base your exposure on, then adjust as needed.

[Hill Country Hack]

I have a kit 75-300mm without IS and I shoot the moon on a tripod with mirror up engeaged and self timer.

I tend to shoot before it gets totally dark and stop down to get what I like and crop in PP. Am at work so no way to show you how it works for me. I shoot at about 250mm since my lens gets soft at full 300mm. I do meter the moon also. I'm still working on the full moon shots, as I get a glare spot. I'm guessing I need to stop down some more.

[faeriegodess612]

Originally Posted by jamesev

How would you go about using an 18% grey card with shooting the moon. I just can't get it close enough to the subject to get a reasonable reading into my camera

I think your confusing what biomech is talking about with white balance. He means that if the moon is bright white because of overexposure then you stop down until you get the details that your looking for.

Your talking about white balance. In this case, just set it to Auto if you want it white and you should be fine. You can play around with the others and see what shades you get. For instance, tungsten might make it appear more blue.