How do you take a picture of the moon using Canon - EOS Rebel T5 DSLR Camera with 18-55mm IS Lens ?

[Miss2o9]

How do you take a picture of the moon using a Canon EOS Rebel T5 DSLR camera with 18-55mm IS Lens?

Please can someone give me directions cause i have looked everywhere .?

[kvbarkley]

palomino:

There are two kinds of moon shots.

If you want a picture of only the moon, like the example photo, use the looney-ll rule as stated. (though the example is a little underexposed for my taste.)

If yoou want a moonrise/moonset shot with other things in view you have a problem. Unless it is during early dusk, like Ansel's famous shot, it is almost impossible to get a good exposure that captures detail in the moon and exposes the "foreground" correctly. The moon, being brightly lit, will tend to overexpose, or the "foreground" will turn black. Most of the shots you see with a detailed moon and detailed dark "foreground" are photoshopped or double exposure.

In your case, I would take two shots, one with the camera in auto exposure to get the "foreground" and another with the luuney-11 and combine them.

[ezpop]

I agree that a long zoom lens will be necessary. As for the trick, you may have a look at this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cGbbSx-Mug&index=89&list=PL335CA023DA605386

[kvbarkley]

Guys:

We *don't* know if a long lens is necessary. Ansel Adams did not use a telephoto for "Moon rise over Hernandez", after all. The OP has to tell us what kind of picture they are trying to take.

[ebiggs1]

Ansel Adams was a master in the darkroom.  Maybe more so, likely more so, than a photographer.  After the correct exposure is obtained, I believe most of the magic is done in manipulation in a post editor.  Just like Adams did for Moon rise over Hernandez.

[TCampbell]

The moon is about 1/2º from edge to edge (it has an elliptical orbit and it's distance from Earth varies by nearly 10% over the lunar month so it gets a tiny bit larger or smaller...but not by much.)  

The shot I posted on the previous page (and I've taken numerous such shots through several different scopes) happens to be taken at roughly 1080mm... but then I cropped in just slightly (it's not much of a crop.)  

I did the math and it turns out that at 1500mm lens using an APS-C sensor works out to about .6 degrees in the narrow direction and .9 in the wide direction.  You need .5 to capture the moon.  So a 1500mm would be a tight fit... but it would fit.  I suppose you could turn the moon sideways during a quarter phase and get even closer.

Anything shorter and you'll just have more room.  If you want a shot of "just" the moon then you'll be cropping in more aggressively with shorter focal length lenses.

If you want landscape in the foreground... that's fine... just be aware that depending on lighting conditions, the foreground may need a LONG exposure to get much revealsed... and that will blow out the moon.

One technique is to take advantage of the fact that wen the moon is near a 1st quarter phase all the way up to just one night before the actual night of the "full" moon the moon will rise BEFORE the sun sets.  That means you can get into position just after sunset as the sky transitions through dusk to darkness and take the shot when the light of dusk is still providing foreground illumination.   If you're planning to make a color image then often a rich blue sky is more attractive than a black sky anyway (and light pollution tends to just create a muddy sky that looks even worse.)

You can use tools such as the Photographer's Ephemeris (they have a website and an app) to calculate precisely where the moon will be located in your landscape on any given night.  That way if you want the moon in your shot, you don't have to get lucky... you can figure out precisely where you need to stand and when you need to be standing there to get the composition you want.

[Waddizzle]

I use the web site TimeAndDate dot com to find the moon.

[RobertTheFat]

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@ebiggs1 wrote:

Ansel Adams was a master in the darkroom.  Maybe more so, likely more so, than a photographer.  After the correct exposure is obtained, I believe most of the magic is done in manipulation in a post editor.  Just like Adams did for Moon rise over Hernandez.

---

Ansel Adams, were he alive today, would likely be one of the world's foremost users of, and advocates for, Photoshop. 

[TCampbell]

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@kvbarkley wrote:

Guys:

We *don't* know if a long lens is necessary. Ansel Adams did not use a telephoto for "Moon rise over Hernandez", after all. The OP has to tell us what kind of picture they are trying to take.

---

Also, Ansel Adams didn't even wait for night.  Moonrise was shot during the day.  He darkened the sky in the darkroom. 

The story of the making of the photograph Moonrise, Hernandez , New Mexico is legendary. Ansel’s description in Examples: The Making of Forty Photographs is oft repeated, and quite dramatic. We have brought together several vignettes that put a little more perspective on what let up to the dramatic moment on a lonely highway at 4:05 PM (local time), October 31, 1941.

From:  http://www.anseladams.com/ansel-anecdotes/

On that day in Hernandez, NM the sun wouldn't set until 5:09pm. 

[Hades_Kane]

I know this is a reply to a very old thread but I ran across this wondering the same thing and thought some actual examples of moon pics w/ an 18-55mm lens would be useful.  Hopefully this will be helpful for anyone else that comes across this in the future.

I used the f/11, ISO 100, 1/100 "looney 11" rule as suggested, and used a Canon EOS Rebel T7i with 18-55 lens at full zoom, no tripod (hand held), in JPG mode, and no post editing other than cropping the picture, so this is about as basic / point and shoot as you can get.

Original picture:



Same image, cropped to just the moon:

[ebiggs1]

What most people don't realize, it it is daylight on the Moon.  If it weren't you would not be able to see it. Anyway not as brightly as we know it.  The fact that it is dark here has no bearing on the Moon but somehow people relate to that darkness here.

You need a bigger lens, my friend!