Tricks for good full moon shots?

We had a clear night tonight and a nearly full moon so I decided to try a few shots. Not great but I just did it on a whim. Besides a much more serious telephoto than my 100-400, any other basic suggestions?

I'm by no means an expert but I know that you need to set ISO to 100, shutter speed 1/60 to 1/125, manual focus, camera on a tripod and IS off.
I'm sure some experts will chime in with better suggestions.

Thanks. This was handheld, as I just grabbed the camera to see what it would look like. I did notice with slower shutter speeds, it was more of a bright blob

duckster wrote in post #19023886
Thanks. This was handheld, as I just grabbed the camera to see what it would look like. I did notice with slower shutter speeds, it was more of a bright blob

Ok. You hand held it. But there's no need for the shutter speed to be 1/2000. That obviously required an insanely high ISO which introduced noise and grain. Lower the ISO to 100 to get a clean image and adjust your shutter speed according while maintaining the aperture between f11-16. If needed, use a tripod. That should really give you very good results.

Good to know. I will have to try it again. I started at f8 with a shutter speed of 1/640 and just got a plain white disc. So, that is when I just started adjusting aperture and shutter speed until I got some details

duckster wrote in post #19023904
Good to know. I will have to try it again. I started at f8 with a shutter speed of 1/640 and just got a plain white disc. So, that is when I just started adjusting aperture and shutter speed until I got some details

Here is my moon shot from years ago shot at 200mm and you can see the EXIF above my image. Here is an article that describes the settings https://www.lightstalk​ing.com/how-to-photograph-the-moon/ and here is a moon thread in this forum https://photography-on-the.net …ead.php?t=80379​1&page=399
Keep trying and learn as you go and you'll do well.

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Whether full or not, I always like to include some of the landscape in moon photos, or clouds if taking a blue-sky daytime shot of the moon. . I just find that including more surroundings in moon photos is more interesting to me than just shooting the moon with nothing but black sky around it. . But of course doing so means shooting it either in the daytime, or at twilight, when the sky and the earth isn't completely dark yet.

Those are all great suggestions. Will have to keep working on it.

Using 100-400 II on 7D2 peak sharpness will be between f5.6 and f8.
Use a beanbag. Way better than a tripod.
Take lot's of shots. Atmosphere will always have a big impact on results, sooner or later you can get a lucky moment where atmosphere is more stable.

I use live view and manually focus using the magnified view, I have a good stable tripod and it works well for me.
I also used a remote shutter release.

I'm a fan of keeping the shutterspeed up as well as the ISO, especially handheld. Using a long telephoto, I don't have the stability to drop the speed so a minimum for me would be around 1/500

It's surprising how fast the moon travels in the frame when using a tripod & a long lens...

Canonuser123 wrote in post #19023923
I use live view and manually focus using the magnified view, I have a good stable tripod and it works well for me.
I also used a remote shutter release.

I have a Gitzo 5 series and Arca Swiss Z1 Monoball.
A Beanbag is much better.

I can touch the camera and a fraction of a second later the camera is still, compared to about 2 seconds for the tripod.
The beanbag also dampens mirror vibrations good enough that I don't bother with mirror lockup compared to tripod showing obvious movement due to mirror movement. Even Iris causes movement on the tripod.

I used to keep shutter speed up, even using beanbag and remote release.
Then I saw that Romy Ocon (AKA LiquidStone) get's great results with very long focal lengths at 1/60 second.
Those shots were years ago when High ISO performance was terrible compared to recent cameras but it does show that high shutter speed is not required (assuming camera is still, only talking about shutter speed due to the moon moving).

Choderboy wrote in post #19023978
I have a Gitzo 5 series and Arca Swiss Z1 Monoball.
A Beanbag is much better.

I can touch the camera and a fraction of a second later the camera is still, compared to about 2 seconds for the tripod.
The beanbag also dampens mirror vibrations good enough that I don't bother with mirror lockup compared to tripod showing obvious movement due to mirror movement. Even Iris causes movement on the tripod.

I wasn’t trying to contradict your recommendation of using a beanbag, I was only answering the original poster as to what works well for me. I like live view and manual focus with the magnified view because I get better sharpness that way.

I use a monopod instead of a tripod, this provides one more stable point other than my hands, when shooting the moon. I use IS on my lenses as well, and run about a 1/200, 1/250th shutter speed just to be safe, and change the other two attributes as needed. On a DSLR, you could try the mirror lockup as well, but I have found no advantage with that myself.

a. Merging frames can give you a fairly nice image.
b. Using stacked TCs is challenging but rewarding when you can nail the combo down.
c. There is actually quite a bit of color on the moon, so try not turning the image into a B&W.
d. Finally as Tom stated, sometimes getting terrestrial elements around the moon is also very interesting.