Please help with this this photo of the moon

This photo of the moon to me is a soft. The white moon is soft inside the moon. Should I use the mirror up? Please help.
Thank you.
Joe

HOSTED PHOTO
please log in to view hosted photos in full size.

looks like you need a faster shutter speed to me...

Hello focus.pocus,
My shutter was Shutter 1.3 sec.
ISO 1600
F 14
So I should change the shutter faster and to that I should up the ISO to 3200?
Joe

Well you are taking a picture of a sunlit moon so try ISO 200 @ 1/250 & F8 and adjust from there.

use ISO 100-200, 1/125-- 1/500

Joe M wrote in post #12361771
This photo of the moon to me is a soft. The white moon is soft inside the moon. Should I use the mirror up? Please help.
Thank you.
Joe

Hi Joe,

If you are exposing for the "dark side" of the moon then you are probably about right.

You will need a tripod and a remote shutter release (or the self timer). Locking the mirror up will help too.

You don't say what lens you are using, although the EXIF says 400mm on a 50D which equates to around 640mm. Bear in mind that the moon appears to move fairly rapidly, so I think you might be pushing it at around one second exposure. I would also open the lens wider to avoid diffraction effects and allow a faster shutter. The lens might be soft when stopped down to f14, but I wouldn't open it totally wide, I'd stop it down say 2 stops from wide open which should give you good sharpness and enable you to get a slightly faster shutter speed. ISO1600 will give you plenty of noise, but you can combat that in PP a bit.

If you were exposing for the sunlit side of the moon then it is the same as a sunlit scene as per the sage advice already posted.

The rule-of-thumb is to use the “Sunny-16 Rule”. This says, for an object in direct sunlight expose at f/16 and time is 1/ISO. So for ISO 100 your exposure would be 1/125. Again, depending on the lens, I would open it up a stop to f11 say to avoid diffraction effects and compentsate by using 1/250s

You will only be able to home in on the ideal combination of aperture, ISO and shutter speed by experimenting. Be sure to post your results

f/14 is too small for the Moon, especially in the small crescent phase and even more so if it is the Earth Shine side you're trying to expose.

If it is the earth shine your are trying to capture then you will have to slow your shutter speed more, and open up that aperture, ISO 1600 should be fine. However, exposing the Earth Shine(shaded side of the terminator) is going to seriously blow out the illuminated Crescent side which will then probably over power the rest of the image.

There is a rule similar to the Sunny 16 rule that applies to the Moon called the Moony 11 Rule.
Starting with the Full Moon Phase with your f/stop at f/11, if you are using ISO 100 your shutter speed will be 1/100s. If you are using ISO 200, your shutter speed will be 1/200s.

http://www.astropix.co​m …ASTROP/TRIPOD/T​RIPOD4.HTM

According to your Exif data you are using Paint Shop Pro. I haven't touched that in years so I am not familiar with its abilities.
Anyways, if you wanted to expose both the illuminated crescent without over-exposing, and expose the Earth Shine with good exposure you would need to take multiple image then blend them together in post processing. You could even use AEB(Auto Exposure Bracketing) for three shots and combine them into a HDR image. But then you would need the software capable of HDR.

Thank you for the info. There is so much to learn. It looks like the weather is getting better, no rain, it will give the time to learn that you have shown.

Thank you
Joe

1. Use proper exposure. You can't expose both parts of the moon in one shot. Too much dynamic range. Use exposure blending (true HDR).

2. Mirror lockup.

3. f/14 is getting into a little diffraction with a crop-factor DSLR. You don't need it for depth of field for the moon, so open up a bit to f/8.