Taking pictures of the moon

I have a question for the photographers out there. How do you take a decent picture of the moon with a digital camera? By decent, I mean a picture that shows the details that you can see with the naked eye. Whenever I try to snap a picture, the moon shows up as a bright circle with no details. This occurs even when it is twilight and the moon is not particularly radiant. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

Put your camera in manual mode. Use a tripod. Open the f-stop up all the way. Manually frame and focus the picture, don't use the auto-focus. Be careful not to shake the camera, and be prepared to hold the shutter button down for several seconds.

I have a Canon 10D digital camera. I recently took images of a full moon with a Canon 100-400mm zoom on a tripod. The best images in this case were at 1/4000 second, f6.7 at ISO 1600. A full moon is actually very bright so you will want a fast shutter speed. You will also want to use a cable shutter release to minimize camera shake. You may find it difficult if you don't have a higher end camera. Hope that helps and good luck.

I have a Canon 10D digital camera. I recently took images of a full moon with a Canon 100-400mm zoom on a tripod. The best images in this case were at 1/4000 second, f6.7 at ISO 1600. A full moon is actually very bright so you will want a fast shutter speed. You will also want to use a cable shutter release to minimize camera shake. You may find it difficult if you don't have a higher end camera. Hope that helps and good luck.

Great moon shot! I'm certainly no photography expert but I'm fairly confident that it is impossible to get that kind of result out of a normal off-the-shelf point and shoot digital camera.

Nice moon shot. This is a tricky subject to shoot.

Nice moon shot. This is a tricky subject to shoot.

Yes, but a $2,000 camera really does help :)

Thanks for the quick replies. I have a Sony DSC F707 and I believe that it has a manual mode. The other camera I have is the CyberShot M1 and it is basically a point and shoot.

I will have to look over the manual settings possible with the F707 and see if I can futz around with it to get a good picture.

Nice picture of the moon. That is exactly what I was talking about in my original post.

This is not spectacular of the moon, in fact you wouldn't even know that's what the light dot is if I didn't point it out to you. I just couldn't resist snapping a shot of the moon through the moonroof.

...and until now, no jokes about shooting the moon?

At least nobody has posted pix of THAT.

:D

OK...it's late. I need sleep.

Good morning Zero, Ritz camera shops usually offer free classes where they answer a lot of questions like yours. My son teaches a few of them up in Va. They will probably be a good source of info on settings and what not.
I have a small telescope that lets me hook up my camera for photos.
I will have to wait for him to come down to show me how.

Couple of photos of Oct 04 lunar eclipse taken with Panasonic FZ10 (4MegaPixel) at 1/400s, F4 & ASA 50. Relatively cheap digital heavy on manual functions with Leica 6-72 focal length (35-400 in 35 mm terms) zoom image stabilization lens taken at 400mm = 12x and 3x digital for about 36x total mounted on Bogen 3021 tripod.

Back to literal moon images...

I have a question for the photographers out there. How do you take a decent picture of the moon with a digital camera? By decent, I mean a picture that shows the details that you can see with the naked eye. Whenever I try to snap a picture, the moon shows up as a bright circle with no details. This occurs even when it is twilight and the moon is not particularly radiant. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

If all you get is a bright circle with no details, your moonshot is overexposed. The moon is a bright object, and doesn't need a fast shutter speed.

I took this with a relatively small lens and then blew up the resolution quite a bit. I suppose it would come out much sharper with a larger telephoto lens.

http://www.mwrforum.net/MWR/moon.jpg

The moon is a bright object, and doesn't need a fast shutter speed.
Wouldn't this mean you don't need a slow shutter speed? Usually the shutter speed is faster when there is more light.

Wouldn't this mean you don't need a slow shutter speed? Usually the shutter speed is faster when there is more light.

Whoops, my mistake... Exactly, don't need a slow shutter speed.

It depends on what kind of lens you're using. If you have a big honking telephoto lens on, you'll need a bit of shutter speed to negate the shake.

Oh Yeah well you should just see how much better the Moon Pics come out taken from a Tacoma.
They are bigger
and brigher
and prettier
and neater,
and better,
and my daddy can beat up your daddy,
and I am going home,
and taking my tamcoma
with me

byyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Must be the full moon :)

Thanks for the quick replies. I have a Sony DSC F707 and I believe that it has a manual mode. The other camera I have is the CyberShot M1 and it is basically a point and shoot.

I will have to look over the manual settings possible with the F707 and see if I can futz around with it to get a good picture.

Nice picture of the moon. That is exactly what I was talking about in my original post.
Hey, zero, ever get any moon shots?
That 707 and a tripod should have been able to do it. ;)

I haven't had a chance to get out there and try yet. It has been raining and cloudy for the past few days. I am going to use some of the advice given and try with the F707.