My Super Moon. This shot was taken with my Canon 60D with a Tamron 150 X600mm lens and settings on manual SS 1/30 F7.1 and ISO at 200. I am not getting the detail I would like on the moon. Any suggestions on how I might improve this shot?
Bye the way I was using a tripod and wire trigger attached to the camera.
JR45
Loc: Montgomery County, TX
To my unknowing eye, this seems to be a focus problem. Were you using manual or AF?
RE
Loc: California
Hi dnbjb1, I use the same lens as you for my moon shots, I usually do so free handed since I do not have a tripod strong enough to handle the lens. I took photos tonight, I will let you know what my setting were, I also use a Nikon d5100.
f-stop 6.3
exposure: 1/640
ISO - 200
APRTURE: 5.3
FOCAL LENGTH: 600 MM
I hope this is helpful! I downloaded a few I took tonight If you like to see them.
dnbjb1 wrote:
My Super Moon. This shot was taken with my Canon 60D with a Tamron 150 X600mm lens and settings on manual SS 1/30 F7.1 and ISO at 200. I am not getting the detail I would like on the moon. Any suggestions on how I might improve this shot?
Your shutter speed was way too long!
To be honest, this thing needs to go in the trash. Ahh, but here is what you do and you don't have to wait 15 years either. You just have to wait until the next full moon because in print, there really is no difference between a Super Moon and a regular full moon. Set your aperture to F8, your ISO at 200, and a shutter speed of around 1/200 sec. for a start point. Since you are using such a long lens, it may be too bright, so bump your shutter speed to 1/600 sec. or more and also play with the aperture bumping it up to F11 or more. Simple. Have fun!
Thanks so much for the advice. I'm just an amateur at shooting the moon and will increase my shutter speed etc. and see if this helps.
I would have increased the ISO as well as decreasing the shutter speed.
Dziadzi wrote:
I would have increased the ISO as well as decreasing the shutter speed.
by decreasing the shutter speed, do you mean going from 1/30 to 1/15, I.e. having the shutter open longer?
or do you mean going from 1/30 to 1/60, having the open for a shorter time span?
Since it's fractions, terminology is confusing sometimes.
dnbjb1 wrote:
Thanks so much for the advice. I'm just an amateur at shooting the moon and will increase my shutter speed etc. and see if this helps.
I am also an amateur, and used a different technique. I set Canon 7D mark2, 100-400 L 2, 1.4 extender 3 on tripod, ISO 200, 560 mm, f16, 1/250, and played with exposure compensation until I got the right lighting. I ended up using ev -3.67. I tried manual and auto focus, but got better results with auto focus. Will send results if you like.
My guess is that you were depending on your camera to perform autofocus.
This is absolutely wrong! Your camera will not be able to reliably autofocus on the moon. It will most likely overshot PAST infinity!
virtually all lenses can focus past their infinity end of their focus range.
Switch to manual focus and give it a try. Rotate towards the infinity end of the focusing end and you will notice that the moon WILL come into focus and then go back out of focus as you come to the infinity limit lock. . . back off from that limit and the moon will come back into focus.
I use the same lens. My settings were 1/640, f8, ISO 100, manual focus. I did mine handheld. If you would like, I'll send you my results. You may need to vary the f stop to get the correct exposure. Just be careful because it is brighter than it seems and can easily be blown out. Good luck.
There is not much that can be done with this now. Take another tonight. Here is the problem. The formula for shutter speed is 1/mm lens. You were using 500 mm lens, so shutter should be 1/500 or faster. The ISO of 200 is very low. You can easily go to 800, 1600, 3200 without a problem. Your exposure is OK. David
Glad to get all this analysis and appreciate the suggestions. Especially the fact I don't have to wait 15 yrs. to take the next shot. Love it! Will try to get improvement tonight. Thanks again for all the suggestions!
dnbjb1 wrote:
Glad to get all this analysis and appreciate the suggestions. Especially the fact I don't have to wait 15 yrs. to take the next shot. Love it! Will try to get improvement tonight. Thanks again for all the suggestions!
The reason you don't want your exposure to be too long is that the moon is moving! Hard to see unless you watch it carefully, but that can at least partially explain why your shot was so out of focus. Faster shutter speeds can "stop" motion...
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