Home Forums Gear Photography Moon/ What am I doing wrong?

A beautiful yellow full moon tonight. This is what i got.

Flip phones don't take the best photos.

The moon is bright...fstop down to 11 and start there.

What are your camera settings?

Thanks good folks, I'll need to study some.

On a related note - shots of the sun when it's dark red from smoke or clouds. The UV burns right through and it doesn't photograph at all. Does this require a UV filter or can a camera be adjusted for it?

It looks sooo easy!

Is this with your phone or dslr?
This may help: https://photographylife.com/landscapes/how-to-photograph-moon

Panasonic point, and shoot.

1/8 second at F5.6. One of our past blood moon events that does not involve the typical brightness.


Given its brightness, one must under expose. Try stepping down exposure time, F-stops or both until one gets what he wants.

Would have to rifle through Cookie's images for this exposure, but am sure it was much quicker on the shutter.



Edited: Found it - Much brighter situation. 1/640 sec at F6.3

1minute I love that second shot. The context provided by the tree's make it.

wabigoon,
There's some great advice on this thread. Summarizing; the moon is bright and in your shot, the brightness of the moon is blowing out the image. If you can manually control the exposure, you can reduce the brightness by speeding up the shutter, or stopping down the aperture. Hopefully after your earlier post asking for advice on a new camera, you got one that you have some manual control over the settings.

Some other bits of advice...use a tripod...steadiness matters. Along those lines...use a remote trigger or use the timer on your camera to avoid shaking the camera as you activate the shutter. This will improve the sharpness of the shot greatly. If you have the option, use the "live view" on the camera and zoom in to fine tune your focus to capture the fine details. That too will improve the sharpness of your shot. I find more success with a faster shutter than what I thought I would for night photography...the moon does move enough to cause motion blur at slow shutter speeds. 1/60 is the slowest I've gone with any success. More often I'm much faster.


Super Moon 2016, f10, 1/60 s.


Shot through light clouds for the halo effect. f5.6, 1/200s, ISO320 (shot for my son's astro project...does anyone want to see all the phases of the moon?)


F5.6, 1/250s, (another astro project shot).


Lunar Eclipse 2014, f5.6, 2sec (note the softness of the image).

wow! You folks know your craft. I'm lower than a rank amateur.

we all started where you are
Post the model of your camera so I can pull a manual and we can see if you have options available on your camera to do a decent moon shot.

Thanks all, Chris, Panasonic, DMC-ZS50

Great news!!! Your camera has a Manual mode. Turn the dial to “M” then play with the settings trying out some of the ones posted.
Make sure to stabilize your camera and don’t forget to share your shots!
Check out page 109 and 143

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/lit_files/319152.pdf#page109

Just checked back. Do be careful with direct sun shots, even in a red sky, as one can easily fry things. Cookie put together a mylar filter when we had the eclipse a few years back. One was safe going without during the diamond ring and totality periods but better install some protection during the other phases.




ChrisF: Nice work!

Thanks men, it over my head but I'll try.

Also do you be afraid to play around with your editing software. The final picture is a layer of two different pictures --- we were on a cruise ship moving along and the full moon reflection was yellow / orange due to smoke from fires. Once picture for the the reflection on the water (moon is blown out) -- change settings and one for the detail on the moon --- worked thru the editing software for the final

You folks are GOOD!!

Someone said it - the moon is bright! For night shots most want to slow down the shutter because it is dark, but you need to speed things up or else the bright moon will be over-exposed. Go into your manual mode and speed things up until you get the result you are looking for.

Very cool stuff!