My first moon shot

Just for the record, I did make other attempt, but it was with the kit 18-55 lens, and I was way long on the shutter speed. They came out looking like a fuzzy white superball against a black background.

I have since obtained a Canon 55-250 lens, and was looking forward to last Sunday for the full moon, but it was way too cloudy. Long story short, it was this past Saturday night, or early Sunday morning rather, before the skies were clear enough and my schedule allowed me to be out in the driveway at 3:30 am taking pictures.

It was taken with an XSi, Canon 55-250mm, shutter speed- 1/200, Ap- f/5.6, ISO-100, and on 2-second timer. It is not the best, but I am happy. I tried several settings, but this seems to be the best pic. It has also obviously been cropped.

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Little bit out of focus perhaps, but a good attempt. At 250mm you're not going to get masses of detail, but keep trying and take lots of shots, adjusting the focus each time, because you're getting the exposure settings about right.

Thank you very much for the comment. I am shooting jpeg and raw, and this is the jpeg, as I wasn't sure if I could post a RAW file. It was a learning experience, but ironically, a big thing I learned was at this time of year in my location in the USA, the moon is not visible til after 2:00 am. Makes sense, but I just never gave it any thought. Thanks again for your response.

Greg In Ohio wrote in post #9779627
Thank you very much for the comment. I am shooting jpeg and raw, and this is the jpeg, as I wasn't sure if I could post a RAW file. It was a learning experience, but ironically, a big thing I learned was at this time of year in my location in the USA, the moon is not visible til after 2:00 am. Makes sense, but I just never gave it any thought. Thanks again for your response.

Time of the moon's visibility changes every day. Has nothing to do with time of year or location. You'll see the moon in daylight a few days a month (weather permitting) no matter where you are or what season. "New Moon", you can't see any time of day from anywhere on the planet.

Hope this helps. Most newspapers will give you sunrise, sunset, and the same for the Moon where they report the weather.

Here's a link to a site that makes it easy - all you need to know is when (even approximately) the sun sets. And a lot more info...

http://home.hiwaay.net​/~krcool/Astro/moon/mo​onphase/

Greg, you are 99% there!
You just need to do some PP on the RAW version (export as jpeg for posting), since you had image editing on I did this to your jpeg posting:

(these are my generic Moon shot PP, kinda always works and give consistent quick results)
1) Select just moon with circle select, do "AutoLevel" under lighting
2) Darken highlights 20%
3) Un-sharp mask 150%, radius 2 pix, 4 levels (I vary the un-sharp mask, don't want to oversharpen, watch for "sparklies" or obvious artificial looking signs)
4) Filter>Noise/DustScratches;ra​dius 1 pix w/threshold 40 (slightly softnes the harshness and removes some artificial sharpness artifacts)

Maybe focus just slightly off, maybe atmosphere...still you have a decent shot Greg!

Here's a full moon shot. As (I hope the EXIF info shows)..you should be able to see, the full moon as opposed to the half moon reflects more light allowing a faster shutter speed. I took this shot hand-held at 1/750..I've taken moon shots at faster shutter speeds too (with smaller apertures - as I should have here). Your shot looks a bit blurred (though fixed up beautifully by MTBDUDEX... . I think you shot at 1/250 of a second...which should be fast enough on a 250mm lens with IS (even without IS...but not so sure if that holds true on a crop sensor like we both have). I'm not sure, but I think that 5.6 might be wide open on your 55-250? Maybe stopping it down a bit could help you get a sharper image (no reason to be afraid of a higher ISO that I can think of). Maybe afraid of noise? You won't know without trying...

As you can see, I was I was at more than double your ISO and no noise I can see even on a pure black sky...you were down at the lowest ISO...My picture is straight from the camera except for a very slight bit of darkening - and of course it was cropped (75%...100% wouldn't fit on my little laptop screen)

Even though I used "spot" metering, I think it's possible that I could have had enough shake due to my hand movement to have too much black sky read by the meter...the moon was not quite centered in the frame which is my first clue. With a tripod chances are the exposure would have been more accurate (darker, and probably better color saturation). It surprises a lot of people just how bright the moon is. As you found out with your "white fuzzy balls" when you used a longer exposure with your shorter lens.

I had a longer lens, so that helped me in my exposure (or would have if it were centered properly) but could have hurt me in that shooting hand-held required the faster shutter speed. In this case it didn't...I actually was overexposed...but shooting a thin crescent moon, it's trickier...And really I'd need a tripod to do it right (or a lot of bad shots to get one good one. Tough to keep the moon in the frame using spot metering..tougher still with a smaller target like a crescent moon. (Even with a tripod, the moon moves across the sky surprising fast...(or appears to...it's the earth's rotation at 1000 MPH that we really see as I'm sure you are aware. So a shorter lens at least is probably easier to get a good exposure on without a tripod...Maybe I should try "center weighted"...don't think I ever have...just "spot" and "partial"...Afraid of "evaluative" with such wide dynamic range. But maybe I should take my own advice and try everything. "Can't know without trying"!!

You could try exposure bracketing...and also I suppose focus bracketing, but at infinity, I don't see how the focus would not be right...unless your lens isn't calibrated....You can certainly tell by checking focus at infinity with a less tricky target than the moon...and of course using a tripod and a faster shutter speed.

In any event, nice shot...especially for a first attempt. Whenever I shoot something that I don't only have one opportunity to snap, (especially on a first attempt), I do a lot of trial and error. I know you said that you had other shots, but you didn't say how many...Personally, after years of being limited to the expense of using expensive Polaroid test shots, now, with digital being essentially free...maybe I go a bit overboard trying different combination of not only ISO, shutter speed and aperture, but also different "picture styles" (not sure if the Rebels have that option). But this picture was probably taken at "standard" or possibly "faithful", so there was no real amount of in-camera adjustment. The lens I used is probably inherently sharper than yours, but I used an extender, so that probably "leveled the playing field" at least somewhat. I actually seen to get better detail with a crescent moon than a full moon...I'm sure that's true for everyone since the sun casts some shadows on the moon's surface when it hits at a tangential angle rather than straight on as with the full moon. Pic below is a good example...lots more detail on the deep craters around the edge ...especially top left, while the center looks very flat. Your shot shows the detail far better on the lower right since the sun is hitting that part of the moon at an angle and in mine, that part is being hit pretty dead on (High Noon on the Moon)...sounds like a good song title! LOL


This shot looks a bit to "mono-chromatic" to me...probably because it was a bit over-exposed in the first place. Your color seems more accurate.

Good job! The moon is an interesting subject since at different phases it presents different challenges...which is always a good learning experience.