i want to take a shot of the moon tonight

[troyer16]

recomended settings? any help? low iso, high iso? aperature? shutter speed? thanls

[Tom W]

Let's see .... Rebel XT.

Just for starters, good, solid tripod. ISO 400. f/8 & 1/320 second exposure. Bracket that exposure +/- 1 stop or so, and shoot in RAW to allow more room for adjustment. Use mirror lockup and a remote shutter release. If you don't have a remote release, use the built-in timer instead.

Look at your results and adjust from there. You may find that with your lens, f/11 is better. Or maybe not. Experiment.

[Mark_Cohran]

Everything Tom said plus try to catch the moon low on the horizon. It will seem larger and appear to have a better color.

Mark

[Tom W]

... But not too low as you'll be shooting through more atmosphere, and that will also present a bit of softness.

If you're in a city with lots of lights and some smog, you'll have to wait until it's fairly high in the sky to get the cleanest shot. Out in the country, the air is generally cleaner and the artificial lighting is minimal.

[troyer16]

thanks guys, im a little unsure of why to use the mirror lock up. i have no remote

[misspix]

Mirror lock up reduces camera shake. Thanks for the thread, I have had a hard time with the moon, too. For some more info:
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=201717

[kfong]

Just for starters, good, solid tripod. ISO 400. f/8 & 1/320 second exposure. Use mirror lockup and a remote shutter release. If you don't have a remote release, use the built-in timer instead.



Mirror lock, remote shutter release and tripod are not necessary at 1/320 second exposure at focal lengths less than 400 mm.

Ken

[StewartR]

Everything Tom said plus try to catch the moon low on the horizon. It will seem larger and appear to have a better color.Well, the colour is real, but the apparent size isn't. It's just an illusion. Check out Wikipedia: Moon illusion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_illusion) for example.

When you're trying to judge the exposure, it might help to know that the albedo of the moon (i.e. its reflectivity) is in the range of 7% to 12%. (Sources disagree.) That's considerably darker than the 18% grey which your camera's meter expects. So to get the exposure right, in theory you'd need to meter off the moon and then set the exposure compensation to somewhere between -2/3 and -1 1/3 stops. As Tom W suggests, bracket the exposure and shoot in RAW to allow more room for correction - but I'd be tempted to bracket around -1 stop (e.g. -2, -1, 0).

Have fun and don't forget to post your results!

[Franko515]

My moon shot question (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showpost.php?p=1832239&postcount=12)

Thanks in advance

[Tom W]

Mirror lock, remote shutter release and tripod are not necessary at 1/320 second exposure at focal lengths less than 400 mm.

Ken

If you want to do the experiments, you can. I did. Considering that the final image will have to be viewed at something close to 100% to fill the monitor, you will see a difference, even at the "short" focal lengths of less than 400 mm. IS would make a difference as well, but I don't see that he has an IS lens in his equipment list.

And yes, despite the proverbial statement that mirror lockup doesn't make a difference above 1/30 or 1/60 or whatever shutter speed, that isn't necessarily true either. Yes, it's a good rule of thumb for small or medium prints. But once again, when dealing with an object that is going to be viewed at 100%, every minute movement will show up. It will be the difference between craters that are crisp and sharp, and craters that don't have a detailed presence.

I'll put it this way - I've shot the moon with my 100-400 IS lens on and off the tripod. Even with good shutter speeds of 1/400 to 1/640, I gain a higher percentage of crisp shots with the tripod, mirror lockup, and the remote release than I do handheld without the remote and without mirror lockup. And that's with the benefit of the IS, which helps a great deal as well.

[Tom W]

Here's what I'm trying to say, Ken. Here is a shot of the moon at 400 mm on a 30D:

http://www.pbase.com/photosbytom/image/64929868.jpg

Viewed as a whole image, any tiny vibration or motion caused by camera shake or mirror vibration won't be visible. But given that the moon is such a tiny portion of the image, we'll want to view it as something much closer to the full screen size. I took the liberty of enlarging this image to 100% and cropping out just a 700X700 pixel square around the moon. Now at this level of magnification (probably the wrong word), any minute movement will be visible:

http://www.pbase.com/photosbytom/image/64929869.jpg

I took several quick shots of the moon this morning, handheld - this one is the sharpest. Most were pretty good, and a couple were rather soft. The ratio of good-soft images goes way up with the more stable mount.

EXIF: Canon 30D, 100-400 L IS, f/7.1, 1/400 sec, ISO 400. Shot RAW and pulled down 2/3 stops in DPP. Also cranked up the contrast in DPP a good deal to show some contrast.

[superdiver]

OK, what exactly is "mirror lock up" and why do we need to do it?

I just hot with a remote so as not to jiggle the tripod with my clumbsy fingers...what does the mirror lock up do?

[kfong]

Here's what I'm trying to say, Ken. Here is a shot of the moon at 400 mm on a 30D:

http://www.pbase.com/photosbytom/image/64929868.jpg
http://www.pbase.com/photosbytom/image/64929869.jpg

I took several quick shots of the moon this morning, handheld - this one is the sharpest. Most were pretty good, and a couple were rather soft. The ratio of good-soft images goes way up with the more stable mount.


Both of the pictures of the moon have N & S inverted.
I would suggest that inaccuracy in AF and seeing condition has more to do with softness than mirror shake.

Ken

[bbqKing]

Do a search for The Shaytech Moon Exposure Calculator. Sorry i don't have the link but it helps alot

[Tom W]

Both of the pictures of the moon have N & S inverted.
I would suggest that inaccuracy in AF and seeing condition has more to do with softness than mirror shake.

Ken

What is N & S?

Both are the same picture.

[Sharnbrook]

North and South. You have inverted the moon's image as seen with the naked eye or a camera.

[Tom W]

North and South. You have inverted the moon's image as seen with the naked eye or a camera.

I have inverted nothing. My camera was level with the horizon. I was not standing on my head shooting. :)

[StewartR]

North and South. You have inverted the moon's image as seen with the naked eye or a camera.I have inverted nothing. My camera was level with the horizon. I was not standing on my head shooting. :)One of you lives in the northern hemisphere and one of you lives in the southern hemisphere. Doh.

[kfong]

I have inverted nothing. My camera was level with the horizon. I was not standing on my head shooting. :)
The Mare Crisium (the stand-alone dark round patch close by the right edge) should be in the northern hemisphere but the pictures show it in the southern.

Ken

[StewartR]

I have inverted nothing. My camera was level with the horizon. I was not standing on my head shooting. :smile:The Mare Crisium (the stand-alone dark round patch close by the right edge) should be in the northern hemisphere but the pictures show it in the southern.

KenOK, so either Tom is seriously mistaken about what he did, or Ken's grasp of celestial geometry isn't quite what it could be. Ockham's Razor suggests the latter, but I don't know either of these guys :), so let's keep an open mind and do some science.

Tom's from Chattanooga, which is at latitude 35°4' North, longitude 85°15' West. The Exif data on the photo says it was taken at 05:33 on August 10th. According to my Planetary, Lunar and Stellar Visibility calculator (http://www.alcyone.de/PVis/english/ProgramPVis.htm), sunrise at Chattanooga would have been at 06:57 and moonset at 08:09 - so at 05:33 we'd expect the sky to be dark but the moon to be low in the western sky.

A detailed look at PLSV - see attached image, below - shows that at 05:32 the moon's equator would have been inclined at 19.5° relative to the celestial equator. But the inclination of the celestial equator to the horizon is the complement of the geographical latitude, i.e. 55° in the case of Chattanooga. So the moon's equator would have been inclined at 74.5° relative to the horizon when Tom took the shot.

My second attachment is a copy of Tom's shot, rotated by 74.5° anti-clockwise. This means that the north pole of the moon should be at the top, and the moon's equator should run horizontally across the middle of the image. It seems to me that Mare Crisium is definitely north of the moon's equator.

Sorry Ken. Looks like Tom wasn't as confused as you thought he was.

[StewartR]

Here's anothwer way of doing it. This is a screenshot from Your Sky (https://www.fourmilab.ch/yoursky/) showing the sky from the vicinity of Chattanooga at 05:55 local time on August 10th. Although it's only a few pixels across, the orientation of the Moon is clearly consistent with Tom's photo.

[Tom W]

Wow! Thanks for the additional explanations. I'd not really looked for a north and south pole on the moon before. I just line it up and shoot (especially when I'm only shooting for demonstrative purposes).

Good information, StewartR.

[Sharnbrook]

Thanks StewartR for such a concise explanation. I wonder how many of us realises that the moon takes on a different aspect dependant on one's location on Earth? Even though I'm interested in astronomy, and have even lived in the northern hemisphere, on the equator, and in the southern hemisphere, it has taken this post to make me aware of the fact. I have learned something today.

[StewartR]

Glad to be of service. Isn't the Internet a wonderful thing?

[Athena]

Back to the camera settings, can someone explain to me why you'd choose ISO 400 with shutter speeds so fast? Wouldn't it be better to use ISO 100? Especially when you are using a tripod, mirror lock-up and a remote release?

[StewartR]

Back to the camera settings, can someone explain to me why you'd choose ISO 400 with shutter speeds so fast? Wouldn't it be better to use ISO 100? Especially when you are using a tripod, mirror lock-up and a remote release?Good point. It's not necessary to be that fast, to freeze the moon's apparent motion. Let's do some more science.

The OP has a 300mm lens, and attached to a 350D that has a field of view of about 4.2 x 2.8 degrees. The moon subtends an angle of about 0.5 degrees, so it will be about 410 pixels across on his photo. Now the rotation of the earth means that the moon moves across the sky at a rate equivalent to moving its diameter every 2 minutes. So it will move by 410 pixels in 120 seconds, which is about 3.5 pixels per second. Ergo, a shutter speed as slow as 1/10th ought to be fine.

[Athena]

Thanks Stewart. Science always intrigues, fascinates and impresses me. And I like knowing that my ISO choice is good too. ;) Now i just need to wait a few days longer to get those crater shadows.

[Tom W]

Good point. It's not necessary to be that fast, to freeze the moon's apparent motion. Let's do some more science.

The OP has a 300mm lens, and attached to a 350D that has a field of view of about 4.2 x 2.8 degrees. The moon subtends an angle of about 0.5 degrees, so it will be about 410 pixels across on his photo. Now the rotation of the earth means that the moon moves across the sky at a rate equivalent to moving its diameter every 2 minutes. So it will move by 410 pixels in 120 seconds, which is about 3.5 pixels per second. Ergo, a shutter speed as slow as 1/10th ought to be fine.

Good point, but in practice, 1/10 second will not give the crisp sharp image that a faster shutter can produce. It's not just a matter of the moon's movement (relative to earth) being equal to or less than a pixel's width in order to bring about a crisp image. It would seem to me, and is borne out in practice, that the shutter speed needs to be considerably faster than that. Why? - because any detail that moves a reasonable portion of a pixel during the exposure time will possibly have an effect on at least two pixels, and this results in some softening of detail. Ordinarily, this might not be important, but in an image that needs to be viewed at 100% on the screen, it will show as a gentle softening of detail.

Still, 1/400 or faster would probably be overkill for dealing with the moon's movement. What it does help with is camera movement. I'm not sure that ISO 400 is necessary if one can deal with the other effects of a slower shutter, though it appears to be plenty clean enough on the 30D to use without much of a noise issue.

All this babbling of mine really means that you can probably go with ISO 200 and 1/200-1/320 shutter speeds without having anything to fear of the moon's movement at 300 mm on a good mount. Handheld, I'd grab all the shutter speed I could get, with respect to the noise limit.

My experience has taken me to higher ISO settings out of necessity. I regularly shoot the moon at 1/80 to 1/200 second on my 5D at ISO 400, but I'm using stacked teleconverters and a much smaller actual f/stop (typically f/11-f/18 ). It's a constant battle between diffraction, noise, and movement when you put a lens/teleconverter combination to the edge of its performance limit. I haven't really had a chance to test the 30D at the limit, but I suspect that it should perform fairly well.

[StewartR]

Interesting points, Tom. I must admit my calculations were purely theoretical - the longest lens I have (for now!) is 200mm, which just isn't long enough to get decent shots of the moon. So I'm happy to defer to your practical experience.

One factor that might be relevant is motion of the atmosphere. After all, that's why stars twinkle and that's why observatories tend to be built on mountain tops. I don't know enough about atmospheric phenomena to calculate what difference it makes, but I could quite easily imagine it has an effect at 1/10th of a second but not at 1/100th of a second.

[Tom W]

Interesting points, Tom. I must admit my calculations were purely theoretical - the longest lens I have (for now!) is 200mm, which just isn't long enough to get decent shots of the moon. So I'm happy to defer to your practical experience.

I've had the experience where even a steady tripod can be shakey when the image is viewed very large. For normal shots where the entire frame may end up as an 11 X 14 inch print, it's not as critical. It's just that short of a very long lens, these shots invariably get viewed at 100% on the screen, or cropped to the point that the full moon image fills a good center on an 8X10 print.

One factor that might be relevant is motion of the atmosphere. After all, that's why stars twinkle and that's why observatories tend to be built on mountain tops. I don't know enough about atmospheric phenomena to calculate what difference it makes, but I could quite easily imagine it has an effect at 1/10th of a second but not at 1/100th of a second.

I've had some pretty bad nights trying to shoot the moon, when it seems that the atmosphere is what my astronomical friends like to call the air "turbulent". Some nights, I just can't get a crisp image of the moon, so I'm certain that turbulence has a significant effect.

[superdiver]

So, did you take any pictures of the moon? How did they turn out?