Terrible moon pictures.....

I tried every combination of settings and nothing seemed to work? It seemed that a shorter exposure with a lower Fstop(3.0) worked best.....OR the best out of all the bad. All on a tripod....I tried a Telephoto lens....A wideangle lens and the factory lens but all turned out bad. The first pic shows the moon but no clouds because I took a very quick exposure.......I want to be able to get the whole sky, moon and all!!!

How in the world do you do it?

This is the closest thing to a good shot out of 40 pics......

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because the moon is lit by the sun, you need to use similar exposure values as you would on a bright sunny day on earth in order to expose the surface correctly.

But, when I do that I don't get the clouds???

How do you get the complete night sky and not overexpose the moon?

Trick is the tripod here is mine from a few months back

Had the same problem. Have to be a completely clear day, no haze. As I am in VA where haze is always a bother. Haven't gotten any good ones yet. But a tripod, good telephoto lens, maybe use the bulb setting and a remote switch.

SuzyView

Bulb setting is not nec. Cause the shutter speed you want is in the 1/100th range. Now the remote, I agree with. Maybe even try using mirror lock up.....

That's pretty tough - It exceeds the camera's ability to capture such a wide range of light levels.

Depending on the moon's phase, you might try it around dusk or sunrise when there is a bit of light in the sky.

Another option might be to bracket it at +/- 2 stops, then merge the two images with Photoshop. Use the +2 image for the sky and the -2 image for the moon. Some experimentation will be required.

Never thought about that??? Hmmmmmm

Well....I guess I just need more practice!

I was using a tripod and also using the remote. Sucks cause the sky was awesome last night. This morning, coming to work, the moon was still out and looked really big, do pics turn out very well of the moon in a blue sky(daytime)?

Here's an exposure estimate you could start with.
The "sunny 16" rule would put you at 1/100 f/16 ISO 100.
Shift that to 1/400 f/8 ISO 100. That will give you a "correct" exposure of the moon.
Since the moon has no bright highlights (it's just a pile of grey rocks & dust), you'll capture more detail without blowing any highlights if you overexpose by a stop. So now you're at 1/200 f/8 ISO 100 to expose the moon.

If you set the camera at 1/50 f/8 with auto bracketing +/- 2 stops, you'll get the following three exposures: 1/50, 1/200, 1/12. The second shot will expose the moon the way you want, and the third will hopefully bring out some of the sky.

The reason I suggest auto bracketing is to take all three shots quickly so the moon doesn't move too much between shots. That'll make the photoshoping easier.

Good luck!

Thank you......That gives me a good start, but I'm sure somehow it will look like a big glowing globe when I'm done with it