Shooting for the moon.

[Kronos]

Morning all, when I took the cat out just after five AM this morning I noticed the moon which was big and bright and I thought I wonder if I could take a half decent photo of it. The short answer is no, all I got was a nice white circle on a black background. I used a Canon EOS 350D with a EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS II Lens fitted. Obviously I was not expecting a perfectly detailed image but hoped for at least some sort of detail.

I am having a lot of problems understanding F numbers, ISO's and speeds and knowing where to change these settings easily.

I suspect you will say that I will need to learn this stuff If I want to improve my photography but perhaps I came to late to DSLR photography.

Is there a detailed simple site that sets out or explains the various the above settings for an old idiot like myself?

[IzzieK]

Here is one...

http://www.digital-photo-secrets.com...s-of-the-moon/

and this...

http://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-ta...the-supermoon/

Now that wasn't too bad, eh?

[Kronos]

I was actually asking for sites that explained, simply what ISO, F numbers, ETC ETC. mean but thanks any way.

[george013]

I was actually asking for sites that explained, simply what ISO, F numbers, ETC ETC. mean but thanks any way.

https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/le...y-concepts.htm

George

[Benjy]

Glenn,just posted moonshot last night,shutter speed 125,Iso 100/200,spot metering,manual focus,tripod,steady shot off,remote,then trial and error,hope this helps a bit...f11 also

[Kronos]

Glenn,just posted moonshot last night,shutter speed 125,Iso 100/200,spot metering,manual focus,tripod,steady shot off,remote,then trial and error,hope this helps a bit...

It probably would Bernard if I knew what the settings actually meant but at least now you have given me some numbers to work with and I will have a play with the camera with manual to hand. Thank you.

[Kronos]

https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/le...y-concepts.htm

George

Thanks George, just what I need.

[Mike Buckley]

Have fun, Glenn. It's never to late to learn this stuff. If you decide to go ahead with learning it, a whole new world opens up for you.

My area has a large population and many camera clubs that get together each year to put on a really large nature exposition. A few years ago I happened to meet the woman who took two of the top three juried awards that year. She explained that five months earlier she didn't know what an f-stop is.

[IzzieK]

OK Glenn, now I understand...the words to look for (google...) are Exposure Triangle. Until I learned that phrase, I was just shooting from the hips...no plans, no nothing, just doing snap shots...

Hope this helps more...

[jcuknz]

Glenn ... you could do what I did when I took my first moon shot ....I appreciated that becuase the moon is a small bright area in a large black sky that the automatics would over expose and result in a white blob.

Sp going into manual I set up the same f/stop and shutter speed that the automatics had given me. Then I had two options to increase the shutter speed [ ie. 1/30 to 1/100, then to 1/400 ] or close the aperture [ use two larger numbers f/2.8 to f5.6 to f/11] until I got a dull moon instead of a white blob. This meant I had gone too far and I needed a bit more exposure so it mean I used 1/200 in the first case or f/8 in the second example.

To speed things up note I am cutting exposure by two stops or a quarter between each exposure.

In actual fact I worked a little differently and below is what I did.

Here you see I went too far and the 'correct' exposure is between the two left images is 1/125 at f4.7 but it was rather cold and I never took the 'correct' exposure.

Note from numerous threads on this subject I know that the exposure varies considerably around the world and the conditions at the time so my trial and error approach is appropriate if you have time to play. Just checked the EXIF and I was using 100 ISO as I was photograhing something in bright sunshine even though it was nightime

[Kronos]

OK Glenn, now I understand...the words to look for (google...) are Exposure Triangle. Until I learned that phrase, I was just shooting from the hips...no plans, no nothing, just doing snap shots...

Hope this helps more...

Cheers mate will do.

[JR1]

https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tu...calculator.htm

[JR1]

Remember the Moon (in fact really called Moon as it is a proper name) is very bright

250th at f11 say, iso 100

Don't shoot full Moon as the image will be flatish, the terminator allows for more contrast, terminator being the difference between the bright and dark

[jcuknz]

Like most of the tutorials here they remind me of the comment "Baffling one with science" and as a simple person they put me off completely despite being excellemt sources of information.
These diagrams come from my hidden website, I deleted links to them from my webpage, and were written for P&S operators some years ago.
I hope Glenn will see and it will help him and those at a similar stage in learning about photography.