full moon shot

[trendkill]

kinda sounded bad in the subject heading *jokes* ok but seriously. how do u take a perfect full moon shot. what are some good settings for it. thx for the help

[Ben]

Well a perfect moon photo will be taken with a high end telescope and camera mount.

D'z Nuts has some awesome ones being his a MaD L337 Astronomy nut compunded with the fact he takes awesome photos. I am sure he'll have some great advice.

I havent picked up a mount but I know they make one for my scope which would be nice as it's a great big 6 foot tall thing that you can see the rings of saturn with.

I havent gotten a mount for the tripod yet so I did a massively ghetto thing. I borrowed my buddies Canon SD110, and on Macro, zoomed into the eyepiece on the telescope, and voila, not too shabby, hahahahah. This camera kicked my D-SLR's ass for this task!

Generally You shoot low low low ISO, and because the moon is so bright in the viewfinder, it was about 1/500 second.

I'll leave D'z Nuts to further on this.

http://www.virgeweb.com/Ben/psylence/Portfolio/TheHalfMoon.jpg

[D'z Nutz]

If you want a decent full moon photo, you might want to try what's been referred to as a the "Luney 11 Rule" which basically says to get a full moon, shoot:

1/[ISO] seconds at f/11

So,
If you're shooting at ISO 100, try 1/100s @ f/11
If you're shooting at ISO 200, try 1/200s @ f/11
If you're shooting at ISO 800, try 1/800s @ f/11
etc...

I've never tried it myself, but I've heard many people use it successfully with very pleasing results.

Now keep in mind, if you want a big portion of your frame to be filled with the moon, you'll want atleast a focal length of 300mm to 500mm. Anything less just won't cut it.

But to get the real good full moon photos, Ben nailed it. A telescope and stable mount is essential.

[TurboMedic]

expose it like you would during the day, the moon is direct sunlight lit ofcourse. Tripod as was mentioned, and if your camera has a mirror lock-up function, or a delayed release use it because it eliminates mirror shake, furthur sharpening the photo. Remote shutter too, or if you haven't got one use a timer mode so you aren't touching anything and the camera is still! If you don't have a longer lens, you may be able to make up for it with higher MP and cropping. I did my shots with a 300mm lens and a 100% crop. Haven't tried yet with the D80, but will soon (it has a MLU funtion)

[trendkill]

ok, thx guys, great info, cant wait to try it all out.