Well, that didn't work. Moon Shot.

I tried shooting the moon for the first time ever.

Here is my final image from last night:

• Exposure
  
• Focus
  
• Burst mode instead of single to decrease the distance the moon moves between shots and improve stacking.
  

Looks like you missed focus and moved. What were the settings?

Tonight, try the moony-11 rule. f/11, shutter the reciprocal of the ISO

So, ISO 400, speed 1/400, f/11

But f/8 is usually sharper so that gets you an extra stop to play with
ISO 400, speed 1/800, f/8

Should be plenty fast enough to overcome any camera movement.

Deleted. Duplicate post.

Heya,

Don't try and rely on autofocus.

Manually focus. If your camera has live view, use that. Hit the magnify 10x button/tab. Then manually focus. Once focused, leave it in manual and start changing settings for exposure. Stop down to F8~F11 for sharpness and to control amount of light coming in (moon is deceptively bright). Change shutter speed to keep it fast, to avoid motion blur and shake from your longer focal length. Also, because the moon is moving pretty fast. Adjust ISO to get the exposure you want based on those settings. Take an image. Adjust shutter/ISO as needed and do it again.

Use a tripod and shutter release (or self timer). You don't want to press the button with your finger--it will shake bad no matter what, at that focal length.

Don't bother stacking. Most people do not stack the moon. Those shots you saw, are not stacked. Try and get a singular, good image, before you start trying to do stacking and what not in photoshop.

You need to better manual focus and do better with exposure. It would have been fine as a single image, with those two things corrected.

Don't use burst mode. The 2nd, 3rd, etc, images are all going to be shakey/blurred/off. Single image. One sharp image.

Nothing wrong with shooting a full moon. What's un-wise about it? The only real downside to a full moon is that it's just less interesting than a non-full moon, where more light is contrasting on craters. Full moons tend to look bland.

Here's last night at 200mm (1/400s, F11, ISO 200):

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/mwise1023/11980​925385/

Oops. That was weird!

I accidentally posted before I was done. I'll fix the first post and remove the content from the second.

Edit: I sorted out the posts (sort of). My apologies, folks. I don't know how I messed that up.

Here is one of my shots from last night.

100% Crop:

gjl711 wrote in post #16610006
Looks like you missed focus and moved. What were the settings?

Tonight, try the moony-11 rule. f/11, shutter the reciprocal of the ISO

So, ISO 400, speed 1/400, f/11

But f/8 is usually sharper so that gets you an extra stop to play with
ISO 400, speed 1/800, f/8

Should be plenty fast enough to overcome any camera movement.

I'll try f/8 at my next opportunity to see if that improves the focus on my 70-300. I'll also try the moony-11 rule. I was concerned about noise, which is why I stuck with a lower ISO last night.

MalVeauX wrote in post #16610091
Don't bother stacking. Most people do not stack the moon. Those shots you saw, are not stacked. Try and get a singular, good image, before you start trying to do stacking and what not in photoshop.

You need to better manual focus and do better with exposure. It would have been fine as a single image, with those two things corrected.

Thanks for all of your great advice. My results without stacking as far as noise goes exceeded my expectations. My exposure was better this time, but the focus is still off.

MalVeauX wrote in post #16610091
Don't use burst mode. The 2nd, 3rd, etc, images are all going to be shakey/blurred/off. Single image. One sharp image.

That makes sense.

MalVeauX wrote in post #16610091
Nothing wrong with shooting a full moon. What's un-wise about it? The only real downside to a full moon is that it's just less interesting than a non-full moon, where more light is contrasting on craters. Full moons tend to look bland.

Here's last night at 200mm (1/400s, F11, ISO 200):

Lovely image! I'm definitely seeing more of what I want to see in yours than I am in mine.

I was thinking that full moons might be tougher to get into focus with the lower contrast.

Why not use live view zoomed in 10x and manually focus. You'll be able to get the best results that way. These days there is no need to pre-focus and such with LV.

Looks like motion blur. Not sure about the EF 70-300mm but a lot of lenses need to have the Image Stabiliser switched off when using a tripod.

gjl711 wrote in post #16612830
Why not use live view zoomed in 10x and manually focus. You'll be able to get the best results that way. These days there is no need to pre-focus and such with LV.

That's what I did the night before. It didn't work out so well. I just wasn't able to get it quite right.

In the interests of full disclosure, my eyesight has deteriorated a bit over the last couple of years (I'm not 18 anymore ). I'm near sighted though, so that shouldn't have any influence on my ability to focus in live view. My dioptric correction is presently -1.5.

MGibbons wrote in post #16612880
=MGibbons;16612880]Looks like motion blur. Not sure about the EF 70-300mm but a lot of lenses need to have the Image Stabiliser switched off when using a tripod.

IS was switched off. Sorry. I neglected to mention that.

I'm not sure if I had the mirror locked up last night, so that may have been something that induced some blur. It wasn't very windy. There was barely a breeze. I wasn't even on the deck with my camera so it wasn't my movements that would have done it. I was in the house controlling it with my tablet.

I'll double check mirror lockup next time.

For my moon shots I usually have mirror lock up and then 2 second timer or even 10 second timer just so there is no motion blur.

try that too

MGibbons wrote in post #16612880
=MGibbons;16612880]Looks like motion blur. Not sure about the EF 70-300mm but a lot of lenses need to have the Image Stabiliser switched off when using a tripod.

This is only true for older lenses and for long duration shots. I don't think anything about say 1/2 a second will see any drifting and at the speeds you need to shoot the moon there will be none.

neacail wrote in post #16612896
That's what I did the night before. It didn't work out so well. I just wasn't able to get it quite right.
..

Try this. While the camera is on the tripod, kick it into LV, center on the moon, and zoom in 10x. Move the box until you can get the edge of the moon, not the craters. Set the lens to MF and with one hand 1/2 press the shutter to engage the IS and with the other slowly focus. Turn it one way and then back looking for the point where the wdge of the moon is at it's sharpest. If you pass it, don't try to go back but do it again. These AF lenses are not built for MAing and the play in the focus ring is usually pretty bad. Trying to go back and forth sometimes leads to poorer results.

It takes a bit of practice but LV focusing while zoomed in 10x is going to get you the best results.

When you're in Live View, you are already effectively in Mirror Lockup because the mirror swings up in order to do Live View anyway; so it's a freebie that you don't have to think about there.

Autofocus can work just fine for the moon with a little patience. gjl711's suggestion above is how I shoot the moon, except I use LV autofocus using the edge of the moon when I do it. Once the AF locks, just switch off the AF switch so you don't bump it and take a few shots.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/snydremark/6821​047697/

Thanks for all of the great suggestions! I'm going to have to print up this thread and work through everything a step at a time.

Great photo, Eric!

Stacking an out of focus shot will not work. If I stack amoon shot, it's usually just 3-5 shots just to reduce noise, but there's not much noise to worry about at 100 ISO.

No need for a tripod either at those shutter speeds the moon is easy to shoot hand held. As it's so bright, auto-focusing is usually best.

I usually use these settings: 1/250, ƒ/5.6, ISO 100 @250 mm (55-250mm lens), with IS on. When using tripods I find it hit and miss and tkes a while to set up, but handheld, do a burst of 5-10 shots whilst auto-focusing with the centre point, you should definitely get some keepers.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/mikeymack/77100​95738/

I'm getting closer!

70-200 f2.8ii (I was desperate)