Shooting the Moon.

[ThatsSomeBadHatHarry]

The moon was on it's way to full the other night and I grabbed myself a high spot on a hill and took some shots. I went with a really small aperature and relatively long shutter speed. Eventually i ended up with trying with a really big aperature. The small aperatures gave a sunburst and the large gave an ovebearing glow. Each shot I experimented with settings but really could not get a sharp shot without too much of a sunburst or bright glow off it's surface. It ended up so all I eventually got in my pictures was the glow of the moon and no actual moon surface. The moon didn't look particularly close or anything, but I figured that I should be able to get some degree of sharpness in the shot.

here are some examples (I've done little to no post tweaking to these.)

Any tips?!?! thanks.

 

[dhokens]

I think you might be over-exposing the moon in your photos. The moon is an object in direct sunlight, and therefore should be exposed roughly the same. A rule of thumb I've read was shutter speed set to 1/ISO and f11. That would at least be a starting point to deviate from.

 

[ThatsSomeBadHatHarry]

I was thinking that. I was hoping I could get the moon with some of the landscape not being totally dark.

 

[justleesa]

Hey...now I know where you live

You might have to catch it earlier...

 

[alcina]

You'll need some fill lighting to make it work with the foreground, most likely. It's not the easiest thing to get the moon to look like much other than a light, water might help. We scheduled our local wedding for the full moon so we could try to have some moonlight over the Gulf shots:

For moonscape, I think you'll need a) a long long lens and/or b) one of those nights when you can simply see the moon structures with your eye - and our full moon wasn't like that the other night, it was just bright.

 

[Charlie99]

Any tips?!?! thanks.

The range between the dark sections and the bright moon is too great for most camera systems. What I've done in some similar cases is to do two shots --- one with moon properly exposed, and the other with the longer shutter time needed for the moonlit scenery.

Then photoshop away.

 

[justleesa]

Charlie! that was a secret!....lol

 

[alcina]

Good call - I never remember to think about stuff like that!

 

[ThatsSomeBadHatHarry]

The range between the dark sections and the bright moon is too great for most camera systems. What I've done in some similar cases is to do two shots --- one with moon properly exposed, and the other with the longer shutter time needed for the moonlit scenery.

Then photoshop away.

The ol' Kansas City Shuffle.

 

[ThatsSomeBadHatHarry]

Hey...now I know where you live

Ahh, pretty impressive. That should be a game "Where am I in Hawaii?"