abc1234 Loc: Elk Grove Village, Illinois

Here are my two cents. Tripod of course. Definitely shoot raw. I do not know why people say f/16. Depth of field is not a problem but the decreased sharpness at this small aperture and long exposure might be. Stick to the old general rule that the lens is sharpest two stops down from wide open. For shutter speed, try at least 1/250. That leaves ISO as the last variable and set that to auto. Also, set to spot metering. I like my sky black and detail in the moon. The histogram is not very useful because it will show basically two peaks: the moon and the sky. Check the moon's detail and using the auto ISO value as the starting point, change ISO to manual and adjust accordingly. Work fast because the moon is moving and getting smaller quickly.

Good luck and enjoy the moonrise. Check for the local moonrise time.

James R. Kyle Loc: Saint Louis, Missouri (A Suburb of Ferguson)

Just about every time this question is posted, anywhere, I am reminded of what was considered to be Ansel Adams' most "famous" photograph, "Moonrise Hernandez". ---- As the story goes (coming from Ansel that is). He stopped the car, almost driving into a ditch, and says to his son and a friend who were along. Here's a good photograph..... ((Seeing a small adobe church and graveyard - all glowing in the warm light of the setting sun - with distant mountains in the background. And the sun is descending rapidly, and time was short before he would loose the light he wanted and saw.))

Getting the camera (large format 8X10) tells his son and the friend to get the tripod, and light meter. Setting up rather quickly, and getting the camera set and "framed" the shot that he wanted. Ansel can not find his light meter. However, his great knowledge of knowing the LIGHT, he slides in a film holder and makes the settings on the moon's Reflected light = (that being 250 candle power per square foot). He removes the protective slide from the loaded film holder and makes his first exposure. In the time it took to put the protective slide back into the holder and remove it to make a second exposure - the Sun goes down below the horizon = and the light is gone off the grave markers. He had only one exposure of that. What he did later was edit at different time throughout his life.

Knowing what to do is very important - pre-visualizing of what you want - what settings to expose to - and thinking of what the outcome of the Print will be The Final photograph. This comes with practice - it takes time - and help from others.

Because I always capture images in the RAW format, I really do not consider the importance of w-b... I can adjust that later.

Read everything that has been posted on this thread - there is a lot of really good instruction that other members have used and tried.

Here is a photo of the moon taken some time ago. The settings are on the image.

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EmilMiller Loc: Miramar, FL

I said 1/iso @f16, or any equivalent exposure.

wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

It is best to take two shots, one for the moon and one for the scene, and merge them in PP. If the scene is moonlit, you might want to shoot it with a florescent filter. This way the scene will come close to what your eye sees with its vision purple. Otherwise, the scene will look like you shot it in daylight.

rob s Loc: La Mesa, CA

Not always necessary. Some lenses don't require it and you don't always need a tripod.

You've had some excellent suggestions.

Here's my m.o.
I use a Canon 7D ll + EF 100-400 L is Mk ll.
I don't know your lens or it's performance wide open but I would highly recommend finding the sharpest aperture and using this As has been said this is often one or two stops from WO. DOE is going to be irrelevant at the distance we're shooting. Focus once manually.
As a starting point I set my lens wide open at f 4. Shooting Manual with ISO at 400, shutter 1/800 and High speed shooting.
Then I fire off a couple of frames and then adjust the exposure as needed. When this produces an image with good detail I take several bursts of about a second or two. All shots are handheld with stabilization on.
I strongly recommend RAW, (you can ignore White Balance then), and I edit in Lightroom although PhotoShop is used occasionally. The difference between carefully selecting the sharpest of your images, (FastStone is very effective for this), and processing a stack is small but usually worthwhile.
Here's a sample of a single frame and a stack of 9 from a week ago taken on the front stoop. (The stack is the second one and was selected from a set of 11).
If you want to show the mountains and crater rims shoot a few days from full - the lighting is at more of an angle on the face of the moon.
Experiment to find what works with your equipment this suits me and mine but you may need the tripod and it's only a nuisance if you are on a ship ;-)

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timepass Loc: Yardley,PA

Thanks so much for your response on shooting the moon,I will give it a try and see if I can make better photo's.Two really nice moon shot's.

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

1. Make sure the moon is being lite by the sun. Under these conditions auto white balance will be fine.
2. use the old Kodak rule for beginning exposure, 1/iso at f16. ex. if your iso is 100, then your beginning exposure is 1/100 at f16. Again this is just a starting point, you can change as needed.
3. wait for the first person to respond to this post by asking what other light reaches the sun besides sunlight.

Leitz Loc: Solms

So you ask a question on white balance, and most of the "answers" concern exposure and technique! I suggest you post in the Astronomical Photography Forum (http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/s-109-1.html) - at least the people there know the difference!

rob s Loc: La Mesa, CA

A timely hint to keep on track. I did at least mention it in my post but I suspect, as is usually the case, the hogs were just trying to help someone who appears relatively inexperienced.

Leitz Loc: Solms

That's all it was intended for. A lot of these threads go downhill when folks start answering questions that weren't asked.

Dlevon Loc: New Jersey

I'm with you, Linda. I make sure I underexpose. Spot metering helps a lot! I also bracket a lot.

LFingar Loc: Claverack, NY

Sunlight would produce the most natural result, but don't hesitate to experiment a bit. Set it to Tungsten and you will get a beautiful blue moon, for example.

Jim Bob

Linda, thank you. Very informative post.

timepass Loc: Yardley,PA

Thanks for the info LFingar,I will try a moon shot on the Tungsten setting.

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

With the D3100 what you see in live view on the lcd should be what you get. Shoot in manual mode. Set the iso to 100. set the exposure to something like 1/640 sec.
Start with your widest aperture (lowest-stop), and keep raising the f-stop until you see the details and shadows of the moon in your live view on the lcd screen. If you are on a tripod use the 10 sec. delay shutter timer so you can take the shot hands free and avoid any blur from touching the camera or tripod.