i want to take a shot of the moon tonight

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

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.

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

... 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.

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

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

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

Ken

Well, the colour is real, but the apparent size isn't. It's just an illusion. Check out Wikipedia: 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!

My moon shot question

Thanks in advance

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.

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

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?

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

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

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

What is N & S?

Both are the same picture.