Night Shots

I just purchased my d7200 and have spent hours reading the user's guide and menu guide. I thought I understood the settings. Last night, we had a "Blue Moon" and I was excited about capturing some great pictures. I found the right spot, set the camera up on a good tripod. Mounted a Nikkor 70-300 AF lens. I first started with "Scene" using the night landscape. ISO is on auto. Took 3 pictures and they are very overexposed. I tried the "P" mode, same results. Same results in "A" mode. I am at a loss. I have been taking pictures for sixty years from my first Kodaks, Pentaxs, Sonys , and Nikons to include d70, d80 and now d7200. I believe I have a basic understanding of hobby photography but I am at a loss here. Everything I thought I knew about my d7200 went out the window last night. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions, I am certainly open for them. Thank you.

It's very hard to correctly expose a moon shot when using any auto-mode.

You can try spot-metering directly on the moon and use exposure compensation but the method that works best is manual shooting. You can not rely on your meter/cam since they always try to expose the mid-tones correct and in that will usually overexpose the moon. Especially when you use matrix-metering.

Easiest is to take a test shot, check the exposure and if it is overexposed, increase the shutter or close the lens down. Repeat this until there no longer is highlight clipping. How much depends on how bright the moon is or how large it appears in your shot.

Using auto-ISO or any other auto-mode will make the cam constantly try to get it "right" which is wrong in the case of moon shots.

I'd set the mode to 'M' to start with, then the shutter speed to 1/125 and f stop to f/11 at ISO 100. The moon is much brighter than we expect it to be at night. If you're handholding set the shutter speed to 1/focal length and adjust the f stop and ISO to match.

600mm, 1/250 at f/16, ISO 400 on a tripod.

Good advise, I will try again tonight. PS I was using a tripod but I had VR off.

Here is a site that calculates exposure settings for the moon shots. Plug in the numbers and see how it goes, a starting point anyway.

Moon Exposure Calculator - Xavier Jubier

Everyone wants to make shooting the moon harder than it needs to be.

Set your camera on

1. AUTO ISO :
   1. ISO 100
   2. Maximum ISO at 1600
   3. Shutter speed on Auto (if will then set the proper shutter speed depending on the lens you are using and the zoom)
      
2. ​Setfocus on Spot
3. Set Exposure on Spot
4. Shoot in Program Mode

Now go out with your D7200 with the 70-300 on it zoomed all the way to 300 HAND-HELD and focus on the moon and fire. I do this all the time and get good results. I just now set my camera just as describe above and only took one photo. Here it is

I am impressed. I will give it a try. Thanks for the feedback.

I just shoot it in Aperture priority, spot metering, ISO 100 Single focus on the moon and fire away.
No need for a tripod. usually this gives me well over 500th or more of a second shutter speed.

However, this is just for shooting the moon itself, which I find kind of boring after a few shots.
If you want to take in the surroundings, like clouds,trees and what have you, than it's a different story.