Moon photos

OK. My wife and I bought our first digital camera...a Canon PowerShot SX20IS. I want to get into photography a little more as a hobby because I have been told I have a talent for taking photos. Of course, to get the most of out the camera, you can't use the automatic settings. One of the things I want to start with is the moon.

The moon is one of those subjects where you cannot use the automatic settings. I've been looking online to find which settings would work best. So far, the opinions I have found vary. The conclusions I have arrived at are...low ISO, f8.0 on apeture and I am still unsure on the shutter speed. Some say you need a long exposure while other say fast.

I would value opinions of those of you who have been doing this for years.

I did go out today and bought a tripod to reduce the chance of blur.

Dave

I wouldn't know about the PowerShot, but with an SLR camera a setting of 100ISO, f/8 and 1/200 shutter speed is a good place to start (the moon itself is pretty bright).

Set your camera to spot metering and put the moon in the center of the frame. The camera should meter off the moon and not the sky surrounding. Typically shutter speeds for moon shots are comparable to daylight settings, owing to the brightness of the moon.

Thanks for the input Pete. I'm going to do some experimenting tonight and what I can come up with. If I get something decent, I'll post a pic or two. My first attempt were simply white blobs, but that was using the standard auto or nightscape settings. I need to go into manual and make the appropriate changes. Thanks again!

Thanks Gone. I am very new to shooting anything but in automatic, so there is going to be some trial and error. I will into that as well. Thanks!

dmg1969 wrote in post #9517870
Thanks for the input Pete. I'm going to do some experimenting tonight and what I can come up with. If I get something decent, I'll post a pic or two. My first attempt were simply white blobs, but that was using the standard auto or nightscape settings. I need to go into manual and make the appropriate changes. Thanks again!

The problem with what you've been doing is that the camera's metering system is quite badly fooled by the blackness of space. The moon only occupies a fairly small part of the composition, but the meter probably sees almost the whole view.

Since the Moon is lit with the same sunlight as the Earth, you can use roughly the same settings that you'd use here. Just do it manually so that the camera's programming isn't fooled.

OK. I don't know if any of you might be able to answer a question for me about this particular camera.

I know the settings I need to experiment with now (ISO, aperture, shutter speed, spot metering, etc.). I also know that the various modes do different things in terms of what you have control over. I see from a review online that manual mode gives me control over shutter speed and aperture, but I don't know if I can also adjust ISO. Conversely, the P setting (Program AE) gives you control over ISO, but the camera chooses the shutter speed and aperture. It doesn't seem that one of the settings gives you full control over everything.

dmg1969 wrote in post #9518433
OK. I don't know if any of you might be able to answer a question for me about this particular camera.

I know the settings I need to experiment with now (ISO, aperture, shutter speed, spot metering, etc.). I also know that the various modes do different things in terms of what you have control over. I see from a review online that manual mode gives me control over shutter speed and aperture, but I don't know if I can also adjust ISO. Conversely, the P setting (Program AE) gives you control over ISO, but the camera chooses the shutter speed and aperture. It doesn't seem that one of the settings gives you full control over everything.

You should be able to manually select the ISO while in M.

dmg1969 wrote in post #9518433
OK. I don't know if any of you might be able to answer a question for me about this particular camera.

I know the settings I need to experiment with now (ISO, aperture, shutter speed, spot metering, etc.). I also know that the various modes do different things in terms of what you have control over. I see from a review online that manual mode gives me control over shutter speed and aperture, but I don't know if I can also adjust ISO. Conversely, the P setting (Program AE) gives you control over ISO, but the camera chooses the shutter speed and aperture. It doesn't seem that one of the settings gives you full control over everything.

If I recall, if you are in M mode, then all you need to do is press right directional button where it's labeled "ISO," (to the right of the LCD) whereupon it will allow you to adjust the ISO.

Excellent. Thanks. It's rough being at work while I'm doing this and not having the camera right here. I'm going to play around a bit tonight if the weather cooperates. Now it's getting cloudy.

Think of the moon as a an object lit by the mid day sun: ISO 100, f/8, 1/125. This mid day setting is a good place to start. The tendency (because it's dark) is to over expose the moon to a blown out white dot with no features.

Set it is manual and use the moon exposure calculator. Doesn't get much easier then that!

What will a correctly exposed moon histogram look like? I'm assuming that most of the graph will be skewed to the right?

Most of it will be completely black, unless your lens is getting you really close. Then there will be a bunch to the right of center, with not much in between.

there's also something called the Moony 11 rule, it's a similar principle to Sunny 16.