Need Tips: Moon Photo w/Canon PowershotSX130IS

[Willowjune]

Getting pix of the moon and of wildlife is my main interest with my new ultra-zoom camera. Last night I got a shot of the crescent moon with my Canon PowerShot SX130IS. Since I'm new to anything but Auto, I used Auto for the first several attempts. Then I tried f8.0 and ISO 400 (I think). The moon did show up, but I certainly would like a higher quality (I did reduce the file size considerably, but the clarity of the moon wasn't much better in the original). I'm willing to get a tripod, as I imagine that would really help. The f-stops only go from 4.0 to 8.0. ISO values are from 80 to 1600. They gave 400 for twilight. I didn't do anything about shutter speed. Advice, please!

[bigrobo89]

Hi,

Having not really ever tried moon photography I can't really offer specific tips but a quick Google search links to lots of websites, for instance this:
How to Photograph the Moon | TZPlanet.com

It recommends good starting points for shutter speeds and apertures etc. which hopefully will be useful.

Paul

[kcoppock]

You might find this thread very helpful as well:

How I shoot the moon..

[Willowjune]

Thanks, guys! From a quick glance, I get "underexpose" and "experiment"--sounds like good advice (although I was hoping for the exact formula :>) ) I'll read more carefully tomorrow when my brain is less mushy.

[ravncat]

The combination you are looking for for a proper exposure of the moon, is about

F 16 at 1/100th at Iso 100. Which , equivalently is f8 at 1/400 at iso 100. (you can of course vary the parameters to give you a different equivalent exposure.)

This is most accurate for the area of the moon which is lit by the sun and on a particularly clear night. The reasoning is that it's the same as a regular daytime exposure - sunny 16 rule. The moon and earth are about the same distance from the sun, the amount of light hitting it is just - full sunlight. It's far enough away that most of the light rays reaching us from the moon are parallel - so it's not getting much darker than being in full sunlight. (the atmospheric conditions can cause scattering, but not so much)

This exposure, will probably render you a black sky - you'll have to balance the exposure a bit for twilight - you can deal with it in post processing or you can slightly overexpose the moon to get less noise in the sky.

[teepee12]

THANK YOU OH THANK YOU. As soon as I can get a clear shot of the moon (I think I have to wait till some leaves come off a few thousand oak trees!) I'M GONNA DO IT.