Lunar (Moon) Photography Guide, by Astrostu

[astrostu]

It seems to be something that everyone tries to photograph at one time or another: Earth's closest celestial neighbor, the moon (or Moon, depending on your grammar philosophy). However, there is a lot of confusion floating around on how to properly photograph it. People seem to be confused about whether or not they need a tripod, what kind of aperture to use, how to focus, proper shutter speed, etc.

Because of this, I have written a 9-page guide on photographing the moon:

Click Here for PDF (http://photos.sjrdesign.net/documents/photoguide_moon.pdf)
Guide last updated: April 2, 2010
Current Version: 2.3 ~ 1 MB

I am hoping that this will clear up a lot of confusion out there ... and a lot of very bad advice. Although I know that this thread will become buried on this forum, I am hoping that people will find it by using this site's Search feature (http://www.thephotobeat.com/forum/search.php) or that I can simply refer people to this thread in the future.

Please let me know if you have any comments or questions about the guide, or suggestions for additional content. You can either reply to this thread, send me a PM, or send me an e-mail (mailto:stuart@sjrdesign.net). I'd really like to hear from you if you've used it successfully or even if you haven't, and what the result was. If you were not successful with this guide, I will personally try to help you (so I can figure out specifically what went wrong and make the guide better for others).

Please note: I will be updating this guide from time-to-time. When I do, I'll update the "guide last updated" date above as well as add a new post to this thread stating as such for folks who've replied.

[Antarctican]

I have never been satisfied with any of the moon shots I've taken. Thanks so much for this invaluable guide to assist me in improving my attempts!

[astrostu]

I have never been satisfied with any of the moon shots I've taken. Thanks so much for this invaluable guide to assist me in improving my attempts!

I hope it helps -- and let me know if it doesn't and what seemed to be the issue! I figured I'd migrate the guide here as part of my divorce of "the other" site.

[Antarctican]

"Operator error" is the problem to date. I always get a white blob without enough definition of the moon's surface. [The pic of the moon in your guide makes me drool!]

[astrostu]

[The pic of the moon in your guide makes me drool!]

How about this?

http://photos.sjrdesign.net/images/moon_full_big.jpg


There's also this, though I don't talk about how to do Earthshine in the guide:

http://photos.sjrdesign.net/images/moon_earthshine_060623_big.jpg

[Antarctican]

Oooo, lovely!

And you have a shot of the phases of an eclipse that is incredible to behold too.

[Terri]

Fantastic stuff. :thumbup:

Great to see you posting this; a worthy addition to our growing Library!

[astrostu]

Alrighty folks, a new version is posted. Updates in this version (2.3) include minor grammatical changes, a new addition on focusing with Live View, two new sub-sections in the Things to Avoid, and an updated Histogram image of what your moon shot "should" look like.

[KMann]

thank you! This is a great guide!

[jbylake]

Great article, but can someone convert this to analog for me?
Film Speed? 100 ISO? and any other pertinent infomation? I've never gotten a good photo of the moon, using film. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

J.:big grin:

[astrostu]

Great article, but can someone convert this to analog for me? Film Speed? 100 ISO? and any other pertinent infomation? I've never gotten a good photo of the moon, using film. Any help would be appreciated.

I'm not sure, but my understanding is that ISO on modern digital cameras is supposed to be equivalent to film speed. So ISO 100 is speed 100.

However, I would think a very quick Google search would turn up the real answer.