Moon Photo Help Needed

Amatuer photographer in need of advice! I have a Nikon d 5000 with a 70-300 vr telephoto lens with 4.5 - 5.6 apeture. I used the dusk/dawn setting on full zoom with little success. Can someone please give me tips on how to take good full moon shots? I want the dark spots to appear and at least have some detail that make the moon so amazing on clear nights. I desperately want some decent moon pictures. I posted the best shot of over 300 pictures.

Thanks

Richard - What you want it esentially impossible in a single shot. The moon is so bright, and the dark area so dark, that your camera can't capture both in one shot. The dynamic range (range of bright to dark values) is too much for the camera's sensor (likely too much for any camera's sensor).

The options you have are to increase the exposure to get detail in the foreground, which will make the moon even brighter than you see it here, or decrease the exposure to get a detail filled moon.

For more advanced techniques, you can look at using graduated neutral density (GND) filters, which can reduce the exposure of part of the image while allowing a normal exposure for the rest. In that case you could lower the exposure of the moon by darkening the top half of the image, and allowing a long exposure to provide details in the shadow areas. I'm not sure that you could get a strong enough GND to accomplish what you want.

Alternatively, you could take multiple exposures and combine them on the computer. This would let you take, for instance, one exposure for the moon, and one for the foreground, and then combine them. Or take more exposures, and use HDR (High Dynamic Range) software, such as that found in Photoshop, to pull out all the areas with detail between the different shots.

One final suggestion - learn about exposure in terms of ISO, shutter speed, and aperture, and learn how to control them. All of the special modes on your camera, like the "dusk/dawn setting" simply manipulate those three parameters; Nothing more than that. Learning how they work together and changing them more manually (in Av, Tv, or manual mode) will much more often give you exactly what you want. One of my favorite sites for learning is the tutorials page at Cambridge in Colour.

Or you can take an image of the moon while the ambient lighting of the environment is still bright enough to capture both in a single exposure as RMNP member Todd Caudle recently achieved here and here.

One final suggestion - learn about exposure in terms of ISO, shutter speed, and aperture, and learn how to control them. All of the special modes on your camera, like the "dusk/dawn setting" simply manipulate those three parameters; Nothing more than that. Learning how they work together and changing them more manually (in Av, Tv, or manual mode) will much more often give you exactly what you want.

Excellent advice!

I agree with all of the above. With your specific example, you would have been best off just exposing for the moon, since you dont have any foreground detail to worry about. So, a smaller aperature and relatively fast exposure (1/ISO at f/11 is probably too quick here, im guessing something like 1/40s at f/11 but some experimentation might be in order!)

A sunny f11 rule for correctly exposing the moon on a clear night works well. With the clouds nearby, you'll need to open up by a stop+. Stan's suggestion of 1/40 sec is +1 1/3 stops, which is probably a good starting point with the moon near the horizon.

These were taken just after sundown, 5 minutes apart:
http://myrabo.com/4images/details.php?image_id=621
http://myrabo.com/4images/details.php?image_id=622

I used f11 on the 2nd one, which gave a much better result (IMO). The pink was gone by then though :(.

For beginner here is a link to a calculator. http://www.adidap.com/2006/12/06/moon-exposure-calculator/ You enter your parameters f stop that you want to use, the position and phase it will calculate the shutter speed that will give you a good exposure. Once you master the exposure part you can fine tune to make multiple exposures to combine for a dynamic range image.

These are all great suggestions that I will try out on the next full moon. Arne, your shots are exactly what I am looking for.

Thanks

I would also suggest turning on the "highlight alert" function in your camera. I'm not sure if the Nikon equivalent is named the same thing, but it will tell you if anything is too bright by blinking in the area that it is too bright. This function doesn't generally help when you are using HDR though.

The best time to capture the moon with landscape is a day or two before the actual full moon. On these days, the moon will rise before the sun sets, allowing you to compose a nicely lit foreground with the moon in the image. Each day the moon rises about an hour later each day, so you can use that fact to help you plan your shots.