My first moon!

Amazing detail in there a little underexposed to me looking on phone! The contrast is perfect for see shadows and dips. Well done good shot.
 
Its gonna be delicate work. Did you spot meter at the brightest bit of the moon? Then you can open up a 1 to 2 stops and that should give a good exposure. As said before superb capture wish I'd noticed it. Did you do this handheld or tripod?
 
Tripod and cable release. I used Matrix Metering. I have been having a few issues with the camera overexposing shots when using Spot Metering. It is probably user error though.

I pushed the aperture down to f8 and it gave a reading of 1/2" in aperture priority mode so i switched to manual mode and stopped down the shutter speed until the image on the back of the camera looked 'ok'. This was 1/100. Maybe i need to learn what to use each kind of metering mode for. Thinking about it now, spot metering is the obvious choice i guess rather than an average of a big black sky with a massive white blob in the middle. :LOL:

Any better? A slight adjustment, but not much... Also altered the crop a touch.


The Moon edit by David Raynham, on Flickr
 
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Thats better well done. You have captured it beautifully and hopefully it now looks like what you actually saw. Spot is the way to go with moon as you only want to judge exposure on the white blob rather than whole scene. Again find the brightest bit spot to that then open lens a stop or two. This should ensure that it does start clipping the highlights.
 
Looks better. Really great detail in it. Make sure when you spot the af point that is on the moon. :plus1:
 
That`s a very nice capture of the moon. Nice detail in there. The edit looks good...
 
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Tintin124 said:
Looks better. Really great detail in it. Make sure when you spot the af point that is on the moon. :plus1:
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Sorry, I don`t mean to butt in here but I was wondering if you would expand on this a little Tintin124?

I`m not quite sure what you mean...
 
Thanks very much. :)

TJC, he means use spot metering so the camera exposes for the brightness of the moon rather than the dark sky... when using the focus point on the moon it will meter for that.

Is that what you asked? Sorry if it wasn't. :LOL:
 
tjc said:
Sorry, I don`t mean to butt in here but I was wondering if you would expand on this a little Tintin124?

I`m not quite sure what you mean...
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minnnt said:
Thanks very much. :)

TJC, he means use spot metering so the camera exposes for the brightness of the moon rather than the dark sky... when using the focus point on the moon it will meter for that.

Is that what you asked? Sorry if it wasn't. :LOL:
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That is what I meant but didn't word correctly potentially. On canon only the central af point is used for spot metering. Not sure about Nikon as I was under impression they could use any af point. If not I apologise about potential bad advice.
 
I constantly try shooting the moon but always find that it comes out to soft. Dont get me wrong im only using a sigma 70-300 but can never find the sweet spot. Is it better to focus with af or manually.
I always use the center af point then just play around with shutter speed and keeping the iso at 100
 
minnnt said:
TJC, he means use spot metering so the camera exposes for the brightness of the moon rather than the dark sky... when using the focus point on the moon it will meter for that.

Is that what you asked? Sorry if it wasn't. :LOL:
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Yeh, that`s what I was asking... appreciate the explanation.

Thanks Tintin124 too... :)
 
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Bobby uk said:
I constantly try shooting the moon but always find that it comes out to soft. Dont get me wrong im only using a sigma 70-300 but can never find the sweet spot. Is it better to focus with af or manually.
I always use the center af point then just play around with shutter speed and keeping the iso at 100
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From the advice I`ve come across whilst researching photographing the moon, the guru`s say manual focus is the way to go... I`ve only ever tried auto focus once (for a few shots) and although they came out sharper than I was expecting they weren`t as sharp as some of the shots I`ve taken when focusing manually.

I use a Sigma 170-500, usually at about 450-460mm... you can see my attempts on my flickr.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/37053298@N06/
 
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Thanks minnnt... focusing manually and under exposing seems to be the way to go with the moon for sure.

I just wish the clouds played ball a bit more often. :banghead:
 
Over all not a bad effort at all especially not the a first attempt, what I would suggest personally would be raising your ISO a little just to increase your shutter speed as to be honest in my experience 1/100th is just a touch to slow to get the very best out of the moon as 300mm plus that said overall good, you've shot it at a good time in the moons phases as the partial moon means the surface is shown in all it's wonderful detail (y)
 
Very good first shot, you captured a lot of good crators along the terminator in detail with shadows cast... Well done!View attachment 6571 Lumix gh3 plus 100-300mm hand held..
 
minnnt said:
Thanks Matt. What would a faster shutter speed do for the image?

Cheers.
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When your shooting the moon at very long focal lengths you'd be surprised just how fast it traverses frame as an example all be it a rather extreme one

 
Dinozorr said:
Poetry in motion!
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It is rather nice to watch isn't it, another one of the videos I love to watch are the ISS time lapses though I don't want to hijack David's thread posting videos that I enjoyed over the years :LOL:
 
MWHCVT said:
It is rather nice to watch isn't it, another one of the videos I love to watch are the ISS time lapses though I don't want to hijack David's thread posting videos that I enjoyed over the years :LOL:
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Could you pm me the tread for your suggested iss video, yep better not hijack this thread. Fully agree. Thanks
 
I've always found a faster shutter speed captures more detail, as the earths rotation etc is lessened, causing less blurring,just a rookies view!!
 
minnnt said:
Ok, thanks, I will try that next time. What's the ideal shutter speed?
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I find start with the fastest you can get away with before you have not enough light entering g, then work forward till you get the best results
 
minnnt said:
Ok, thanks, I will try that next time. What's the ideal shutter speed?
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As Jason has said as fast as you can get ideally, as a general rule I am to get at least my focal length even though I'm on a tripod with mirror lock up to so if I'm at 500mm I'll aim for 1/500th (y)
 
MWHCVT said:
When your shooting the moon at very long focal lengths you'd be surprised just how fast it traverses frame as an example all be it a rather extreme one

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I read this post the other day but literally couldn`t spare the 5 mins to watch the vid... I have now and although I`ve seen the moon moving across the sky many times when trying to photograph it, it`s quite amazing to just sit and watch it.

Breathtaking, majestic, amazing and beautiful...

Thanks for posting.
 
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