How to take a picture of the moon
December 28, 2007If you’re in a hurry you can ignore the discussion and skip straight to the summary
Since a couple of people have requested this, here’s the Stop Shooting Auto! lesson in shooting the moon.
Back in the olden days, when cameras were carved out of stone and didn’t have whizbang light meters and dozens of confusing exposure dials, photographers had to choose their settings manually. In fact, my first 35mm camera, a Kodak Pony IV, had printed inserts that went into a slot in the back of the camera to help you pick your settings. For bright sunlight you used this, for cloudy bright you used that, etc. And horror of horrors, there was no Photoshop– if you screwed up the exposure, you had to try to fix it in a (gasp) darkroom. And that was if you were lucky– most people just lived with whatever bad photos they took.
Back in these dark, dark days, photographers often relied on rules of thumb to help them choose their exposures. The most common of these was called the Sunny f/16 Rule. The rule went like this: for objects that are brightly lit by the sun, set your aperture to f/16. Set your shutter speed to 1/ISO of the film. (Film? Do you remember that?) So if you were shooting with ISO 100 film, you’d set the camera to f/16 and 1/100 sec, or as close to that as you could get. At ISO 200, it was f/16 and 1/200 sec.
I know what you’re thinking. That’s great, Patti. Thanks for your little stroll down memory lane, but someone has been spiking your Geritol. I want to photograph the moon, and I want to do it at night when it’s dark out. Why would I care about sunny days?
Here’s a little secret. The moon is nothing more than a bright object lit by the sun. Sure, it’s in a dark sky and everything around you is dark, but the moon is surprisingly bright. However, it’s also pretty far away, and that makes it look pretty small in the sky and even smaller through your camera’s lens. Unless you have a very long telephoto lens, your camera’s meter just won’t know what to do with the shot. If you’ve tried to take a picture of the moon in automatic mode, you probably got a small white dot on a dark but washed-out background. We can fix that, but it will mean putting your camera in manual mode. I hope that’s not as scary to you as it would have been before you started reading this blog.
Let’s go back to that telephoto lens thing for a moment. The first thing you want is the longest telephoto lens you can get, so that the moon looks like something other than a white dot. 200mm is about the shortest, 300mm is better, and 500+ is even better than that. If you don’t have a long lens, a teleconverter is a useful accessory to have. In a nutshell, a teleconverter is kind of like a magnifying glass added to your lens. With a 1.4x teleconverter, a 200mm lens acts like a 280mm lens, and with a 2x teleconverter, a 200mm lens acts like a 400mm lens. There are some serious downsides to using teleconverters, but they can also be useful tools.
OK, so you have your longest lens out. You might want to use a tripod too, lean the camera against a wall or something to stabilize it. What settings should you use?
First off, use manual focus. Because the moon is pretty small in your viewfinder, many cameras have trouble focusing on it. If yours works in autofocus that’s great, but if not just switch to manual focus and do it the old-fashioned way.
In my experience, the Sunny 16 Rule is close but not quite right for the moon. The best settings I’ve found seem to be around ISO 100, f/11, and 1/100 sec. However, sometimes something a little slower or faster does a better job. Because of this, I recommend doing something called bracketing. Bracketing is just a fancy term for taking a bunch of shots at slightly different exposures so that you can pick out the best one.
Set your camera for manual mode, ISO 100, f/11, and 1/100 of a second. Take a picture. Now without changing any other settings, set the shutter speed to 1/200 and take another picture. Do the same thing at 1/400. When you’ve done those three, go the other way. Set the shutter speed to 1/50 and take a picture, then 1/25. If you aren’t using a tripod, don’t forget to brace the camera against something solid like a wall or a pole, so you don’t get camera shake. And voila! One of those is probably a pretty good shot of the moon.
- Manual mode, at f/11 and ISO 100
- Focus manually
- Use a tripod or stabilize your camera against a sturdy object like a wall
- Start at 1/100 sec and take a shot
- Brackeet a couple of shutter speeds faster and slower (e.g., 1/60, 1/30, 1/200, 1/400, or whatever speeds are closest to those on your camera)
- Look at the images on your computer and pick out the best one
The next time you have a clear, dry night and the moon is in the sky, try it yourself.
And here are a few products that may be useful in shooting the moon:
Tamron 1.4x Pro Teleconverter for Canon cameras
Tamron 1.4x Pro Teleconverter for Nikon cameras
The Tamron pro series of teleconverters are optically quite excellent. Their physical geometry makes them work with most telephoto lenses (at least on Canon… I’m less familiar with Nikons), and they give you a fair bit of extra focal length to bring the shot in closer.
Canon RC-1 Wireless Remote Control
This little gizmo is amazing. It lives on the strap of your camera, completely out of your way, but just waiting until you need it. When you do, pop it off and voila– you have a wireless infrared remote. It works with most Canon dSLRs, it’s inexpensive, and it’s incredibly useful.
I have a Kodak 812 IS…What I want to know are my pictures of the moon suppose to come out blue.
No, your pictures probably shouldn’t come out blue. Your camera is probably trying to do some funky white balance adjustments. I’m not familiar with that camera, but try setting it to manual white balance and daylight (or around 5000K if that’s how your camera does white balance.)
How about showing us an example?
thanks for the tip ,,, I have a Pentax k10d .. going to try manual more often ,,,
I took pictures of the moon but when I try to enlarge them on my iMac in iPhoto the picture becomes blurred when I try to enlarge or zoom in on it. Otherwise it looks great!
I have finally got off auto to do the moon and doing prettygood even hand held I have a Nikon D80 with a Tamron 18-250 lens. I did find out that when the moon is not full, it is better to use a different ISO of 400. The smaller the moon, the larger the iso or am I doing something wrong?
Denise, you’re doing something right and wrong, but 95% right!
When the moon is not full, it’s less bright. Because of that, you need to find a way to get more light into the picture.
You have three choices– you can use a faster ISO, a slower shutter speed, or a wider aperture. I would probably try to use a wider aperture or a slower shutter speed first, and only increase the ISO if those don’t give good results. Increasing the ISO is usually my last choice, since it introduces more noise into the image, but it’s always a viable option.
Hi, I just successfully took a picture of the moon thanks to your advice. I notice you mention the Tamron 1.4 converter for the canon. While looking into them I came across one by canon that is a 2x converter. What is your opinion on that one?
Thanks,
Nick
I have the Tamron Pro 2X teleconverter as well as the 1.4X.
There are two problems with a 2X teleconverter. One is that you lose two stops of light rather than one. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s worse than it sounds– your f/4 maximum aperture lens suddenly becomes f/8 maximum aperture. On nearly all Canon dSLRs, that means you’ll lose autofocus capability.
Second, 2X teleconverters affect image quality more than 1.4x.
Having said that, a 2X teleconverter isn’t a bad tool– it’s just not as good as it sounds at first. Having said that, I’ve been known to stack my 2x and 1.4x teleconverters. Do that with a 200mm lens, and you wind up with 560mm of reach. The image quality gets pretty bad, and I’ve never gotten any really usable shots that way, but it’s a fun party trick.
Your photos look amazing compared to my feeble attempts to capture the moon. Mine are always slightly blurred and discoloured.
I’m using a Samsung L60 digital compact. I can’t do much about the auto-focus or the shutter time, but you’ve inspired me to give it another try! :-)
Without being able to control the exposure, you’ll probably find it frustrating to shoot the moon with a compact camera. If that’s what I had available, I’d probably try to shoot moonlight instead– catch light and shadows in tree branches, reflection off of a window, something like that. Be creative!
Thanks for your wonderful directions on how to take a picture of the moon. They first helped me get my pictures, then enabled me to write a nice little post about it, where I directed my readers here to see for themselves. I thought I had found the limits of my camera, now after just reading a few posts here I realize that I’m just beginning. You’ve given me new excitement about my old camera.
Yay! Congrats! I’m glad I could help get the shots that you wanted.
Good morning. Yesterday I tried to take a picture of the moon, with some clouds in between. Unfortunately there where a green spot that disappears only when the moon was exactly in the center of the frame. I was using a Canon 40D with a 24-70 F2.8 lens, then I tried changing lens, and even with a polarized filter, but the spot didn’t disappear. I wonder if you know what I am doing wrong? Thank you.
Is the spot actually in the photo itself? Do you see it when you download the image to your computer and view it there, or is it only on the camera’s LCD display?
If you don’t see it on the computer, it’s probably the camera’s autofocus indicator. If you do see it on the computer, send me a link to the image and I’ll take a look at it.
I have been reading all of this and i cant wait to try! I have a D90 and i am in Iraq right now. the moon is soo huge sometimes here… I hope i get good results! If I do I will post another note here…..
Good luck! And stay safe over there.
Nice article, but you made one obvious mistake:
“The rule went like this: for objects that are brightly lit by the sun, set your aperture to f/16. Set your f-stop to 1/ISO of the film.”
… This should read:
“Set your SHUTTER SPEED to 1/ISO of the film.”
You’ve already set your f-stop to f/16.
Thank you! I knew exactly what I meant, but my fingers typed something other than what my brain was thinking, and the error got past my proof-reading. I appreciate it when readers catch my errors.
Should have read this great advice yesterday! Full moon in the Netherlands last night and at last a clear sky. I shot with Canon 50D, 1.4 TC and a 70-300mm zoom at 300mm handheld but my back braced against a wall. Pic was my best so far but stll soft. Will try again. Thanks for this advice.
Good luck!
I shot with an 800mm last night, and a 1.4x teleconverter. Unfortunately, it was hazy here so it was just a test shot, but I got to experience just how awkward and annoying an 800mm lens is to work with.