Need some help with moon and clouds

[thegrandpoohbah]

I need some advice. I was out trying to take some pictures of the sky tonight. The moon was peeking out through the clouds and the sky was just beautiful. Sadly, I seem unable to take that beauty and capture it with the camera. To get the moon exposed properly I need to shoot at f/11 with a shutter speed about 1/100-1/125th of a second and ISO at 100. When I do this all I get in the shot is the moon and the clouds are not visible. To make the clouds visible I seem to need a longer shutter speed (I was trying 10 second exposures tonight). This exposes the clouds ok but I was getting lots of subject motion blur because of the wind and the moon was way over exposed. Is there something I am missing? This just didn't seem like it should have been so difficult to do...

[equilution]

Tough call...unless you want to spend some time with PS post processing. I'll have to think about this. Originally, I was thinking about a double exposure. I know there's a recipe. I'll get back with you.


Jim

[dcclark]

You've discovered a fundamental problem with moon photos -- the moon is SO much brighter than everything else in the night sky, that you just can't get a properly exposed moon and any other subject together in the same photo. I suggest photoshopping it -- take a properly exposed moon photo, and take a properly exposed cloud photo, and clone the moon into the photo.

If you're worried about clouds moving, then that's tough. You could wait for a less windy night, and you could try lowering your aperture (try f/8 at least) and raise your ISO (even ISO 400 should be fine). That could let you speed up the shutter speed enough to avoid too much motion blur. Especially if you're combining two exposures together (to get the moon right), this will look OK.

[equilution]

Originally Posted by dcclark

You've discovered a fundamental problem with moon photos -- the moon is SO much brighter than everything else in the night sky, that you just can't get a properly exposed moon and any other subject together in the same photo. I suggest photoshopping it -- take a properly exposed moon photo, and take a properly exposed cloud photo, and clone the moon into the photo.

If you're worried about clouds moving, then that's tough. You could wait for a less windy night, and you could try lowering your aperture (try f/8 at least) and raise your ISO (even ISO 400 should be fine). That could let you speed up the shutter speed enough to avoid too much motion blur. Especially if you're combining two exposures together (to get the moon right), this will look OK.

Lightroom is excellent for changing the exposure of a defined area in the pic. You can get properly exposed clouds, then brush over the moon by decreasing the exposure.

If you can send me a link of what you've got, I can download it and try it in lightroom for you.

Jim

[thegrandpoohbah]

Originally Posted by equilution

Lightroom is excellent for changing the exposure of a defined area in the pic. You can get properly exposed clouds, then brush over the moon by decreasing the exposure.

If you can send me a link of what you've got, I can download it and try it in lightroom for you.

Jim

Thanks for the offer, but everything was so bad that I deleted the whole lot. I'll wait for another nice night and try getting two well exposed shots to photoshop together. Might be a while though, it's snowing again...

[kjonnnn]

Moon exposure calculator | All Day I Dream About Photography


Desaturating an over exposed Moon wont do it. Once you've blown out the highlights, there is NO information there to recover. Try a moon and separate cloud shot.

[Blaze Jaffe]

Originally Posted by kjonnnn

Moon exposure calculator | All Day I Dream About Photography


Desaturating an over exposed Moon wont do it. Once you've blown out the highlights, there is NO information there to recover. Try a moon and separate cloud shot.

NICE! Thanks for the link! Great job...

[zona5101]

same scenario...photoshoped a properly exposed moon into a different photo that was exposed for the clouds... in the original the moon is blown out beyond recovery.

[Brittainy]

i'm a TOTAL amature, and don't have a complete understanding of the phtographic technicalities yet, but i got a 75-300 lens for my birthday in august and promptly set out for moon pics. i got a whole bunch of varied results. i did get some great ones with the clouds forming a rainbow halo around the moon AND the moon was not blown out. the camera was on the night setting, and the pop-up flash was used, though i don't know if it made a difference. the ISO speed was high, maybe 800. and i took it from my porch with my elbows on the rails to steady them with a slow shutter speed, (maybe 5 or 6 seconds, i don't know what that translates to in camera speak), with beautiful results. i took about 100 pictures and came out with probably ten that i really liked. the ones i took before i remembered to remove the UV filter came out neat and artsy looking, with a double exposure-like production of the moon. it was a lot of fun.