Shootin' the Moon

Went out last week to shoot pictures of the full moon. This was actually the night after the full moon as the night of the full moon was cloudy. This was the first time I've ever tried anything like this. In fact, this was the first time I've ever tried nighttime photography. It was a lot of fun. Learned a lot. I think I can do better next time. I had hoped to get some shots as the moon rose over the mountains, however those shots were so bright that all detail was lost. They looked like shots taken into the sun. Not sure how to adjust for that. Perhaps an ND filter? Focus was more challenging than I anticipated. I was using a 600mm Tamron lens. I focused on the trees on a distant ridge before the sun went down, but things still seemed a bit soft. I'll have to work on that.

Coming from a very amateur astrophotographer you need a variable polarizing filter, at least when using a telescope. With the lens you are using I would assume the same. Full moon is a pain to get a good shot of from my experience, and honestly if that is your first kick at the cat, I would be ecstatic with those pictures.

Thalweg said:

These shots were so bright that all detail was lost… Perhaps an ND filter? Focus was more challenging than I anticipated.

Click to expand...

Thalweg…

Thanks for sharing and musing on how to do things differently. I’d suggest altering the exposure by reducing some/all of the three exposure controls:

• lower ISO
• shorter time — Tv
• smaller aperture — Av

… David

David has you started. I don't shoot the moon a lot, only as the mood strikes me, and I happened to grab a shot on what appears to be the same evening so I'm posting only so you can see the metadata differences...



As you can see I'm shooting at a slower shutter speed and lower ISO (and handholding, just to be clear). When you're shooting the moon (no pun intended) you want to shoot in full manual mode, or at least make full use of the EV adjustment. Use the histogram and make sure that you're no blowing out highlights. I typically underexpose to make sure I can get all the details.

Now I have one distinct advantage here - an extra 200mm and an extra 20MPs. The first is nice, but the latter is probably more important because even with 800mm This was my crop (left is unedited RAW)...



On the R6 you're probably down to about 8MP's of moon - but that doesn't mean you can't get satisfying results. But when you're cropping that much the ISO you're shooting at will have a lot more impact, even when the camera can normally handle it. And up to now I've assumed you've shot RAW, but if you're not then you'll definitely want to as that will be the easiest way to pull some contrast out of what otherwise may just look "blown out".

I'm too lazy in the early morning (when I generally find myself wanting to shoot these) to drag a tripod out, but that will also allow you to lower the shutter speed and therefore the ISO.

Thank you all for the advice. I'll try to get out during the next full moon and implement it. Perhaps many of my mistakes were the result of being in too big of a hurry. I had it in my head that I wanted the moon shots to be silhouetted by mountains. Unfortunately, by the time the moon rose over the peaks of the mountains it was very dark. Also, from where I live, I'd have to drive a considerable distance into the mountains in order to shoot the mountains from a westerly direction. Otherwise, I'd have to drive home at night through a gauntlet of deer, elk, and moose. I hate doing that. So, I was shooting easterly at about 9:00 PM. Once the moon rose over the peak, everything was moving incredibly fast. I was just trying to get shots as fast as my timer would allow. There wasn't time to make any adjustments, or so it seemed.

Yes I was shooting RAW. I played around with processing a little bit in Canon's Digital Photo Professional 4 (I haven't taken the dive into Lightroom yet), but aside from cropping, few of the adjustments I made were an improvement over what came straight out of the camera. So, I abandoned most of the changes. We have numerous forest fires in the region which is causing the orange tint. I thought about taking that out, but I kind of like the look.

Lessons learned. Slow down. Save the silhouette idea for when the moon rises earlier in the evening and the sun is still helping light the hillside. I don't need such a high ISO, which will allow for lower shutter speeds. I had intended on manually focusing, but I may have been in AF. I need to work more on my focus. I thought I needed to have the aperture wide open. Apparently, that is incorrect. I can shut it down a bit, which will also allow for longer shutter speeds.

Thanks again. I'll show you the results of my next attempt. I'm also hoping to get up onto the mountain during the new moon in the next few days to try to shoot the Milkyway. That may be interesting.

I went out last night and shot the latest full moon using some of what I learned from last time. I slowed everything down. This time I shot from my front yard as opposed to driving into the mountains. The shots aren't as sharp as I had hoped. I was on a tripod with manual focus. I used the 10-x magnifier to focus in on some of the tiny craters on the moon to get them as sharp as possible. So, I don't think this is a focus issue. It had just stopped raining. In fact, the clouds had cleared just a few minutes prior to this shot. So perhaps there is a atmospheric humidity issue. Or, perhaps this is just the best that this Tamron lens will do. I did a wide variety of shots with different shutter speeds, apertures, and ISO. The results were all similar.

I would use a wider aperture. Maybe F8 or 10 depending on where the sweet spot of your lens is. I would also raise the shutter speed to 1/400, 1/500 sec... basically as fast as possible to keep a reasonable ISO. I think that these two may be your biggest factors. The lens diffraction at F32 may be the biggest reason for the softness. At the distance of the moon, focal depth is not an issue. Also, the moon moves surprisingly fast. This is very noticeable on a tripod because you must keep re-centering. So, I recommend bumping up the shutter speed too.

Two more recommendations. First, I do recommend a tripod and turning off IBIS. If you have a remote shutter, use it or use the Canon Connect phone app. I use my cable release with a 2-second delay. Also give it a try with IBIS ON and take some photos that way too. YMMV. Second, use spot metering. Evaluative metering tends to be over-bright, imo, and may lose some detail. You can still use exposure compensation to ETTR a little if you desire. Third - yeah, I know I said two but I can't stop myself - try single point autofocus and aim for a place where the dark shadows meet the lights or a bright crater impact. If your using manual focus, you need to keep updating your focus frequently.

Below is a photo I took out of my bedroom window F10 is my widest adapter with the 1.4 converter and I might have gotten a little more detail by stopping it down to F11 or F13. I wasn't worried about ISO-1250 because the noise reduction is so good nowadays.

jcass said:

I would use a wider aperture. Maybe F8 or 10 depending on where the sweet spot of your lens is. I would also raise the shutter speed to 1/400, 1/500 sec... basically as fast as possible to keep a reasonable ISO. I think that these two may be your biggest factors. The lens diffraction at F32 may be the biggest reason for the softness. At the distance of the moon, focal depth is not an issue. Also, the moon moves surprisingly fast. This is very noticeable on a tripod because you must keep re-centering. So, I recommend bumping up the shutter speed too.

Two more recommendations. First, I do recommend a tripod and turning off IBIS. If you have a remote shutter, use it or use the Canon Connect phone app. I use my cable release with a 2-second delay. Also give it a try with IBIS ON and take some photos that way too. YMMV. Second, use spot metering. Evaluative metering tends to be over-bright, imo, and may lose some detail. You can still use exposure compensation to ETTR a little if you desire. Third - yeah, I know I said two but I can't stop myself - try single point autofocus and aim for a place where the dark shadows meet the lights or a bright crater impact. If your using manual focus, you need to keep updating your focus frequently.

Below is a photo I took out of my bedroom window F10 is my widest adapter with the 1.4 converter and I might have gotten a little more detail by stopping it down to F11 or F13. I wasn't worried about ISO-1250 because the noise reduction is so good nowadays.
View attachment 31622

Click to expand...

Thank you for the comments. I really do appreciate the thoughtful help. I must have taken fifty shots last night. I ran the gamut of shutter speeds, apertures, and ISO's. Including ones very similar to ones used in your shot. The shot I posted was about as good as they got. I did use a 2 second delay. I ordered a cable release, but it hasn't shown up yet. I did not turn off the stabilization. I suppose that is one further thing I could try. I was using spot metering. I didn't use AF last night, but did the previous attempt. Frankly, I was pretty impressed with myself over the manual focusing I was able to get on the small craters. I doubt that the AF could have improved on it.

I think differences between your photo and mine could be that you're using a much higher quality lens, and an extra 100mm, plus a 1.4 times teleconverter. I also have to wonder if the double the number of pixels of the R5 over my R6II could make a difference. I really think I'm at the limit of my lens. Maybe I'll pick up a teleconverter, but if I can't get crisp shots with what I've got, I'm afraid the teleconverter would just magnify that error.

This is my last shot of the moon. Before any comments. I never pleased with my shots of the moon but I do not use a tripod and probably never have used the best lens or settings. It's just my instinct of shooting the moon when I like it. The other thing is that I keep doing different things in post editing.