topic Re: Photographing the Moon in EOS DSLR & Mirrorless Cameras

Tips for Photographing the Moon

Anonymous — Tue, 24 Sep 2024 13:56:26 GMT

As a relative beginner with an EOS90D with 18-135 nano USM lens, I'm getting excited about a 'Harvest Moon' tonight. Here in the UK we have a clear blue sky and I live in the hilly Pennines, so should be ideal for some great photos.

So please let me have some tips for set up etc - I have a tripod and don't mind getting up early tomorrow if needed.

Thanks

Twiddler

Re: Photographing the Moon

shadowsports — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 13:27:21 GMT

Greetings ,

A sturdy tripod is recommended. A remote cable release for the shutter might also be a good idea.

The EF-S 18-135 is not a very fast lens so you will need to do a long exposure. At some point you may want to consider a lens with a faster aperture and a little more reach.

Be sure to share some photos with us after your shoot.🙂

Re: Photographing the Moon

Anonymous — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 14:02:33 GMT

Thanks Rick - will do.

Re: Photographing the Moon

kvbarkley — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 14:47:41 GMT

135 is pretty short, you will not get much detail in the moon. Actually, given the brightness of the moon, look up "loony 16" rule, the exposure time is not too long.

You can ignore the exposure stuff, but you can calculate how many pixels the moon take up by using calculations from here:

https://community.usa.canon.com/t5/EOS-DSLR-Mirrorless-Cameras/Getting-prepared-for-the-eclipse/td-p/465087

Re: Photographing the Moon

kvbarkley — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 14:56:30 GMT

By my calculation, the moon will take up 374 pixels.

Re: Photographing the Moon

ebiggs1 — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 15:05:13 GMT

"135 is pretty short, you will not get much detail in the moon."

Yes, 135mm is not just pretty short it is way too short of FL unless you want a lot of surrounding area in the photo. However it does depend on what results you are after.

"Actually, given the brightness of the moon, look up "loony 16" rule, the exposure time is not too long."

This is something people don't realize, it is only dark here on Earth where you are but on the Moon it is full daylight. It is really not possible to expose properly for here on Earth and detail on the Moon in the same photograph. Of course there are procedures and tricks you can do to get both

Re: Photographing the Moon

kvbarkley — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 17:09:56 GMT

Sorry, it is the looney f/11 rule since the moon is not quite as bright as a sunlit scene on earth.

Re: Photographing the Moon

Anonymous — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 18:10:53 GMT

Thanks for all your help - I appreciate my lens is limited- but I'll still get some photos+ I've never heard of loony 16 - so you learn something every day!

Re: Photographing the Moon

kvbarkley — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 18:17:42 GMT

Note that loony 11 is to expose the moon correctly, you will probably need much more exposure for the landscape. To EBiggs's point, take *two* shots, one exposed for the moon, and the other exposed for the foreground and combine them in post. I did this shot in one exposure, though it is much wider than 135mm:

Re: Photographing the Moon

Anonymous — Wed, 18 Sep 2024 07:34:28 GMT

You were right about the lens!!!

Re: Photographing the Moon

Anonymous — Wed, 18 Sep 2024 07:45:57 GMT

Re: Photographing the Moon

Tronhard — Wed, 18 Sep 2024 08:13:34 GMT

When shooting the moon you will tend to have two challenges - the relatively small size of the moon, demanding a very long focal length, and the relatively high reflectance of the moon, relative to the black universe, risking over exposure.

With a shorter focal length lens, a good idea is to place the moon as an element within a contextual landscape - by a building, framed by a bridge or similar structure, shining through trees, for example.
In the following example, I deliberately allowed to moon to blow out to get the exposure on the tower structure correct, so it was not the dominant element in the image, but contributed to it by being located at the top of the tower.
Canon EOS 5DsR, EF 100-400L II@ 128mm, f/9, 1/15sec, ISO-2000
If you want to isolate and magnify the moon, you need major focal length, and we're talking something around 600-800mm at this point; although in the images below, because I was using the 600mm lens on a crop-sensor camera, the Field of View (what the combination of lens and sensor record) is equivalent to using a 960mm lens on a Full-frame camera.
One of the challenges with super long telephotos is the interference of clutter from possible cloud, pollution, dust or even heat has in an urban area or during the summer. In the following example, I think there was some very, very light cloud up high.

EOS 80D, Sigma 150-600c@600mm, f/6.3, 1/150sec, ISO-320

As to exposure. I recommend using spot metering centred to isolate the area being read to the actual area of the moon. To get the right exposure may take several iterations, and is most likely best done in M mode where you control the variables without the camera changing them. The image above was done using that method to get the details of the moonscape.

Another option is to photography the moon when there is far less contrast against the sky - essentially as the sun is rising. This may produce a blue background, which can be interesting in its own right, or modified in post-production to greyscale.
Canon EOS 80D, Sigma 150-600c@600mm, f/.7.1, 1/500sec, ISO-100

Note that you can get much more texture by shooting when the moon is not full.

Re: Photographing the Moon

Anonymous — Wed, 18 Sep 2024 08:41:25 GMT

Thanks Trevor - yesterday was a relative one off with the Harvest Moon. As per my earlier post I'll be now buying two lenses- but not upto 600. Your advice on composition is also very helpful and I'm here to learn.

My late father was a semi professional photographer so I grew up with a dark room in our basement- a long time ago. So I'm having to get my old head around the wonderful technology and I'm really enjoying the process.

Thus canon forum is also great for people like me - so thanks again.

Best wishes

Twiddler

Re: Photographing the Moon

Tronhard — Wed, 18 Sep 2024 09:24:19 GMT

Always welcome. Look forward to seeing the fruits of your future efforts!

Re: Photographing the Moon

wq9nsc — Wed, 18 Sep 2024 11:13:15 GMT

As others noted, with a shorter lens then your best bet is composition against an object or part of the landscape to capture a compelling image. As fall approaches, sometimes shooting through a leafless tree can provide a compelling look.

For emphasizing the moon itself, a long telephoto is a must. I got home fairly late last night from teaching a grad course and I noticed how incredibly bright the moon was as I was driving home to my rural location. The first two photos are captures from last night using a 5DS R, the first is with a Sigma 150-600 extended to its full 600mm length and the second is with Canon's 800mm f5.6. For comparison, here are a couple of images taken several years ago with the first captured using my 1DX III with the Canon 800 also using a 2X extender and the final photo was captured using the 1DX III body coupled to my Celestron telescope which provides the equivalent of using a 2800mm f10 lens. The longer focal lengths are very good at capturing detail but they also depend upon a very good clear and stable atmosphere to do well.

Rodger

Sigma EF 150-600@600Canon EF 800 f5.6Canon EF 800 f5.6 with 2XCelestron telescope (2800mm equivalent)

Re: Photographing the Moon

kvbarkley — Wed, 18 Sep 2024 12:45:29 GMT

Just optics, physics and math.

Re: Photographing the Moon

Anonymous — Wed, 18 Sep 2024 12:51:21 GMT

They are amazing. We were given a telescope a few years ago and it was a very complicated piece of equipment. I'll see if can get it to work with my camera. Those are stunning photos.

Thank you

Re: Photographing the Moon

wq9nsc — Wed, 18 Sep 2024 14:48:45 GMT

Thank you Twiddler,

You can "attach" a camera to almost any telescope but what methods are available depends upon the telescope and camera. The lunar photograph using the Celestron was taken using an adapter that mounts a Canon body directly to the Celestron optical tube and I have an alternate adapter that allows the camera body to be used with the Celestron eyepieces installed for additional magnification. But a fairly simple alternative that will work with pretty much any telescope is an adapter that allows the camera with lens to "look" through the eyepiece, these are also available for smartphones.

I use a Sky Watcher equatorial mount that can also be used as a simpler azimuth mount when desired. With the proper hardware it will mount either a large telescope optical tube or a normal camera lens/camera combo and I use a ZWO ASI Air to run the setup via my iPad. This setup allows the use of a smaller ZWO tracking camera along with the main ZWO astronomy camera which uses a actively cooled Sony sensor and it has an adapter to fit Canon EF mount glass.

I haven't spent enough time with "space" photography but it definitely makes sports photography seem very simple by comparison!

Rodger

Re: Photographing the Moon

Anonymous — Wed, 18 Sep 2024 15:52:11 GMT

Hi Rodger

Thanks for taking the time to show me this equipment. I'll get the telescope out of 'store' and see what I can do. It's a pretty big piece of kit that my brother bought, because he lives on the coast. He passed it on to us because it takes up quite a lot of room.

Thanks again

Very impressed.

Twiddler

Re: Photographing the Moon

wq9nsc — Wed, 18 Sep 2024 16:43:32 GMT

Good luck and take care of your back when moving it around because these big telescopes are HEAVY!

I stay in shape for lugging heavy cameras around through my other hobby of restoring vintage amateur radio gear. This candidate for restoration just arrived from Canada, a 23 kg Eddystone EA-12 receiver that was produced in Birmingham in the mid 1960s before making its way across the Atlantic to Canada. Eddystone made exquisitely refined mechanical tuning dial drives that they also sold to a few other manufacturers.

Rodger