Harvest Moon

[Fenris]

I've never really gone out to photograph the moon. I've made some stacked star trails and a few night time landscape images after running around with a torch and long exposures, but never really thought about photographing the moon.

Then last night we had a great view of the moon from our back garden so I got a camera out and my tripod and thought I'd have a little play...

I'm quite happy with that. Not bad for a first attempt.



Nikon D810, Tamron 200-600mm (at 600mm)

Settings: f/13 (Aperture Priority), ISO 140, 1/60sec, -1 EV

[zx9]

Cool, taking pictures of the moon is not something I have ever tried doing.
The fact that the moon is illuminated by the sun makes Sunny - f/16 work is perfectly reasonable but still makes me think - WOW

[MJB]

I have to say I prefer photos of the moon when it's ⅔ to ¾ full as you get shadows on the craters which give better contrast. 

[petrochemist]

Sept 19, 2024 17:01:52 GMT zx9 said:

Cool, taking pictures of the moon is not something I have ever tried doing.
The fact that the moon is illuminated by the sun makes Sunny - f/16 work is perfectly reasonable but still makes me think - WOW

There is in fact a special variant of the Sunny sixteen rule, especially for the moon. It's called the 'Loony 11'
Same basis as sunny 16 but using f/11 instead to allow for the slightly darker surface of the moon.
Of course it doesn't work during a lunar eclipse when the moon gets considerably darker.

I've tried shooting the moon on many occasions, but haven't managed anything better than Fen's shot. Sometime I must try it through my telescope

[daves]

I've never tried imaging the moon, just cursed it roundly.

[daves]

I'm not a Lunar / planetary imager so can only offer general advice, but taking a LOT of very short Raw exposures is the way to go. Dedicated planetary imagers will take short raw video clips of thousands of frames and run them through dedicated software that can analyse the individual frames and stack only the best 10-20%. Post processing the resulting stacked image is outside my knowledge, but I'm sure that software like Registax could deal with your Raw exposures.

Stargazers Lounge forum has a section dedicated to Lunar imaging, which might be worth a look.

[don]

Sept 19, 2024 19:44:02 GMT daves said:

I'm not a Lunar / planetary imager so can only offer general advice, but taking a LOT of very short Raw exposures is the way to go. Dedicated planetary imagers will take short raw video clips of thousands of frames and run them through dedicated software that can analyse the individual frames and stack only the best 10-20%. Post processing the resulting stacked image is outside my knowledge, but I'm sure that software like Registax could deal with your Raw exposures.

Stargazers Lounge forum has a section dedicated to Lunar imaging, which might be worth a look.

Stargazers Lounge forum I’m heading over there now thanks for the heads up, I’ve tried a few full moon shots several years ago but don’t think I’ve gotten the ambition anymore, I’ll just look at other people’s photos 

[don]

Stargazers Lounge forum Some of those images are mind blowing

[daves]

Yep, there are some seriously good imagers on there. I'm not one of them lol.