How to take a moon pic?


Guest Andrea

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Re: How to take a moon pic?

If your camera has a spot focus on it that can be used, if not, set your focus to infinity. You might have to use manual focus. Use the highest F stop you can. Do not use slow shutter speeds. The black space around the moon will fool your camera's light meter into using a slower shutter speed causing the moon to look like a white dot! Bracket the exposures until you get the effect your looking for. If your camera is digital, you can see which shutter speed will give you the best results. If your using 35mm film start out with F8 or higher then write down the shutter speed of each shot. Hopefully your processor will also number the shot on the back of each photo. This way when you get your photo's back you will know what you used for each shot. Also film speed will have an effect if you dont use the same ISO speed each time. Try to stay away from real fast ISO film speeds, I would keep it under 400 ISO. The higher film speeds can be grainy looking once the photo is processed.

I always kept a small notebook in my camera bag of certain photo's I took while out. I also wrote down any tips that would be helpful incase I would need them. Good luck!

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Re: How to take a moon pic?

JOHN IS 100% correct.

OK andrea I have done some experiment work for you here is what I found out.

This pic below is a shutter speed at 1/60

And the moon is a bright blob.

1-60.gif

This pic shutter speed 1/250

Much Better.

1-250.gif

This pic shutter speed is 1/500

A little dark.

1-500.gif

I have not done nothing to these other than snap them really quick off a tripod. I can see if I had more time and it was warmer outside I could have zoomed more and played with the shutter speed more to get better pics. But I think this will give you the idea. cool.gif

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Re: How to take a moon pic?

Daylight on the moon is the same as daylight here on mother earth. Don't let all the blackness around the moon fool you or your camera. Off the top of my head, about f11 at the inverse of your film or ISO should be a good place to start, ie: 400iso=1/500th sec shutter, 100 iso=1/125th, etc. The blur form the slow speeds is the moon moving during your exposure. Like John said, bracket, bracket, bracket.

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Re: How to take a moon pic?

Picture218_sm.jpg

Took this picture tonight of the Moon. It was cloudy with patches of clear openings, so it took me forever to find a good clear shot of the Moon. Clouds are horrible to photograph the Moon in. Luckily I have patience. Here's the settings I took the picture with.

f/8.0, ISO200, 1/160th, fluorescent light mode, and natural color mode. I was using a Kodak Easyshare Z612 camera for the photographs. I only waited around for a single shot, didn't take anymore because the clouds were just too long of a wait for tonight. If I had more time I probably could used some lens and filters to get a closer shot.

I think it turned out okay for the first time attempting to photograph the Moon on this new camera. My old camera didn't have manual settings to photograph it while this camera has full manual settings.

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Re: How to take a moon pic?

Check through your manual Andrea. You might have to put your camera in manual mode to adjust your f stops.

I have not yet tried a moon pic with my dslr, you should be able to scroll through the stops and see them on your lcd screen. The viewfinder probably also has that information, but maybe a little difficult to see it, as I am sure it is very tiny.

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Guest Andrea

Re: How to take a moon pic?

[ QUOTE ]

Here's one I took a while back. Setting the camera to aperture priority mode seemed to work best. Does your camera have different semi-auto settings?

FullMoon.jpg

[/ QUOTE ]

Once I set it to AP, then what????

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Guest Andrea

Re: How to take a moon pic?

[ QUOTE ]

I just left it there and took the pic.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well I tried it on that setting, EVERY setting for that matter and it turned out crappy. This is an expensive camera and I am gonna be P.O.'ed if it won't take a moon pic. mad.gif

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Re: How to take a moon pic?

Here is the exif data from my picture.

Camera model: SP500UZ

Date/Time: 2006:08:10 02:13:12

Resolution: 640 x 480

Flash used: No

Focal length: 63.0mm

Digital Zoom: 5.000x

Exposure time: 0.0010 s (1/1000)

Aperture: f/3.7

ISO equiv.: 80

Exposure bias: -2.00

Whitebalance: Auto

Metering Mode: matrix

Exposure: shutter priority (semi-auto)

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Re: How to take a moon pic?

You should be able to set your stops Andrea. Not at all familiar with your camera, but bet somewhere in your manual it should tell you how.

On my camera there are arrows next the lcd screen that you can use to change your iso speeds and control the stops.

Look in the index of your manual for setting iso speeds, should be all the information you need right there together.

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Re: How to take a moon pic?

Inter-changable lenes Andrea? If so, the F stops could be on the lens! A small ring that will turn closest to where the lens attaches to the camera body. If you dont, then there is an adjustment somewhere inside the electronics. My Fuji has a pernament lens (fixed). I have a button that allows me to adjust the F stops. On my 35mm, each lens has the F stop ring that adjusts.

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