How to photograph the moon
Tomorrow will be the final lunar eclipse of the year. It will be visible for those of us in Tokyo, Japan starting at ~4:20pm, it will reach it’s greatest magnitude ~5:17pm, will begin to recede at 5:53pm and will be over by 7:01pm. If you are not in Japan, you can check out NASA’s website for information on your area.
I am going to try to shoot the eclipse tomorrow if time permits so I wanted to make sure my ‘moon shooting skills’ were up to snuff. Shooting the moon is actually much easier than you might think. Here is how I approached it:
Focal Length:
First you need a focal length of ~300mm. I actually talked myself out of not buying new camera equipment (there is a first time for everything) and got away with a 200mm with a 1.4 telecoverter giving me a focal length of 280mm.
ISO:
You want to put your ISO as low as possible. In my case I used ISO100. I actually tried ISO 50 but the 100 shot looked better.
Aperture:
You’ll want to set your aperture at f/11 to make sure you capture all of the details in the moon’s surface.
Additional Setting:
I set my camera into Live View mode, I manually focused using the LCD screen and zooming in 10x and then released with Profoto Airsync remote release, all sitting on a Manfrotto 055CX3 with two 3KG weights to keep everything stable.
Post Processing:
In Photoshop CS5, I adjusted the curves to medium contrast and applied an unsharp mask filter (amount 150%, radius 1.0, threshold 0)
Summary of the settings:
Canon 5DMKII, Canon EF 200mm f/2.8 L, 1.4x teleconverter, 1/125, f/11, ISO100, shot in Live View, manually focused, released with Profoto Airsync.
Give it a try, you might be pleasantly surprised…
Leave a Comment
Your email is never published or shared. Required fields are marked *
You might also like
-
Shoot for the moon!
Dave's first picture of the moon!
-
High Dynamic Range (HDR)
A quick overview of High Dynamic Range Photography. This is a great process for land scape or night photos to bring out details you otherwise won't capture.
-
Panning
A brief overview of how to execute the technique panning to bring motion and emotion into your photos.
Great lesson, fantastic! thanks
nice
I had it on manual. I set the aperture and ISO. Focused and then went to set the shutter speed. When I “listened” to the camera the moon was blown out.
My photo turned out pretty good and I am really new to this so I appreciate the advice.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/48173424@N06/5541199539/
Should I have zoomed in so all I saw was “moon” and taken the reading off of that and then recomposed the shot? This picture is cropped quite a bit. The shot turned out pretty good using all the tips. I can’t figure out why I can’t get the meter reading myself though. I’ve got to be doing something wrong. I can take a decent manual picture using the tips form Understanding Exposure now, but the moon is really throwing me!
Thank you so much!
Jen
Jennifer. Sounds like a focusing problem. Are you using Auto or manual focus? Did you use a tripod? I didn’t get a meter reading, I set the exposure manually.
Thank you so much for posting this! I am pretty new to manual photography so I was excited to get a start on where to set my camera! Can I ask for what you took your meter reading off of? When I shot my first couple the moon of course had no detail when I listened to the camera. I cut the exposure time in half and still no detail. Is it just through experimentation or did you really zoom in on the moon at first to get a reading?
I love your blog btw and seeing all of the pictures of Japan, especially right now. Thank you again for posting the info!
Jen
Nice detail Dave. I’ll be waiting for the super moon here in Illinois tonight.
Thanks for the tips.
Hi Prakash. A few suggestions. First get Bryan Peterson’s book understanding exposure. You will learn a ton in a very short amount of time. The way I learnt manual was pretty simple. I went and sat at a Starbucks on a busy street. I put my camera in AV or TV to get a proper setting, then put those same ones into manual. Now I have a proper exposure for manual. Then I put the camera on 1/1000 of a second and adjusted ISO and aperture so I have a proper exposure and took a photo of a car as it went by. Then I lowered a stop to 1/500 and did the same thing, then another stop to 1/250, then 1/125, etc etc looking and seeing what the change in the effect was. Then I put my lens at the smallest aperture, mine was f/1.2 and took a picture of my coffee cup and saw the effect on the background, then kept stopping down and watching the change in my picture. Then did the same with White Balance. Then kept my camera in Manual mode for a really long time after.
Put your camera in Manual mode and leave it there for the next month. You’ll learn a ton that way. Another approach, start using AV and TV modes more and watch the settings and effects you want. I would suggest put your camera in Auto White Balance, if you want to isolate a subject use AV, if you are concerned about movement, either implying it, freezing it, capturing it, use TV. Leave your ISO as low as possible.
sir ..
rgt now i mcliking photo on P MODE Also on AUTO MODE
but i dont know how to set Manual function ONCE TIME shutter speed ,iso & apperture
this is the main technic in photography ..
buy putting on auto or p mode any one can clik the photo
but manual is the function ..which i want to learn
can u give m some tips
thank u
prakash
hi sir ,
actually yet i hv not did any class for photography …i bought canon 60 d camera here & just enjoying photography …
in this camera ther so many functions …
i will send u some snaps …
thanks
prakash
I shot it at 1/125. Nice photos by the way…
Thanks Prakash, glad you like he photo. I don’t teach photography professionally. Let me know what level you are at and I can try to recommend some books or courses for you.
hi
very nice ..amazing sir..
moon photo is is very beautiful…i m prakash from india ..right now i m in japan for next two months..
i want to learn photography ..can u teach me photography ?
have u taken any classes abt photography ?
pl send me reply .. i m very crazy abt photography
prakash
Thanks for the interesting article.
Just wondering what shutter speed you used for the attached shot ?
I took a few good ones up in Hokkaido http://lru.jp/51pe but used high a iso with relatively quick shutter speeds 1/4 etc
Cheers
Glen
[...] perhaps another treat – for those of us amateur photogs trying to capture the moon, a “photographing the moon” guide from Shoot Tokyo! Tags: lunar eclipse, lunar eclipse 2010, the world is round You can leave a response, or trackback [...]
Hey Lem. I don’t believe you need to protect the sensor for a lunar eclipse as it is save to view with your eyes. I haven’t shot one before but from what I am reading you tend to need to modify the setting a bit to something like ISO500, f/5.6 and 2-4 seconds. If you use Live View you can tell if your shot will be properly exposed or not. I will research more before the next one in June 2011.
Good insight into photographing the moon. I’ve bookmarked it and will definitely try it. My results in the past have always turned out blown-out or a bit blurry. Unfortunately it’s gray & overcast here in Chiba this afternoon, so I’ve given up on the possibility of photographing the eclipse.
Also, I was wondering if your setup/settings would work as well for photographing the eclipse as it obviously did for capturing the moon’s beauty without the sun behind it. Is there any technique you would suggest? What about protecting the camera sensor?
Very nice shot. I really need to get myself a remote shutter release. Without this, it is fairly tricky not to get blurry shots at 300mm. Terrible weather forecast for Osaka tonight, so it gives me time to look for one before the next lunar eclipse…