Partial moon shots

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Steve
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Hello. I attempted some partial moon shots last night. Any tips on how to get them better?

I'm using a Sony A200 with Tamron 70-300mm lens. The pics have been cropped down.



 
The first is massively overexposed (assuming you are trying to get an image of the lit side and not the unlit side). The second is better, but still very slightly overexposed. What you have to remember is that the lit part of the moon is in full sunlight and you should expose accordingly. A good starting place would be to put your camera in manual mode, set ISO to 100, aperture to f/8 and shutter speed to 1/125s.

If the resulting image is still a bit bright, either increase the shutter speed, or close the aperture down to f/11. If it is too dark, use a slightly slower speed or open the aperture by a stop.
 
Thanks for the advice. I actually wanted both sides in the 1st picture but couldnt work out how to dampen down the bright side. How would I do that?
 
I am still trying to get one decent shot, let alone combining multiple ones! I am waiting for the full moon and hoping for a clear night. I'll try and nail that one before progressing any further!!
 
Actually the full moon isn't the best time to shoot, as the lighting is flat and the resulting image doesn't show much detail.

I always find that shooting the moon at other times produces more interesting images due to the amount of detail thrown up by the shadows along the terminator.

Almost full moon
moon5.jpg


Somewhat less than full moon
173.jpg
 
That would be an interesting exercise. :)

It was a Celestron telescope, so perhaps cheating a little, but I was trying to show the difference between shooting at full moon vs any other time.
 
Nice photos!

I got some shots last night that I was a little more happy with.

 
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