Issues taking shots of the moon with D3400

Elliesdad

New member
Hello all. I am pretty much a newbie (at least in modern times) and trying to understand why changes I make to aperture , shutter speed and/or ISO make no difference in the photos we take of the moon. I bought the D3400 bundle with AF-P DX NIKKOR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR and AF-P DX NIKKOR 70-300mm f/4.5-6.3G ED lenses for my wife for Christmas and I want to help her with her moon shots. I have looked for advice and came away with conflicting info. First we changed the mode dial to "M", tried apertures from 5.8 up to 16 and shutter speeds from 1/60 up to about 1/250. We are using the 70-300mm lens, turning the auto focus off and zooming to the max and then coming back in just a bit (infinity?). I have tried setting the ISO at 100 and the camera will not allow me to get even close to that low of a number. All combinations within these parameters seem to make no difference to the image captured. All are over exposed and show no detail in the moon. Was just looking elsewhere and they are saying use a shutter speed of 1/1000. That, I would imagine, would help with the over exposing and we have not actually tried that but will on the full moon tonight. So what are we doing wrong and how do I get the ISO to where it needs to be? Should we be using another mode? Any advice would be greatly appreciated and thank you in advance for any consideration.
 
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Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
I'm wondering if Auto-ISO is enabled... I can't come up with any other reason why you wouldn't be able to control ISO while Manual mode.
 

todd7500

Senior Member
Welcome,
Can you look through the menus and see if your ISO is set to auto?
That might explain why changes to shutter speed and aperture don't seem to be effective. I guess you could just look at the data display when you review the pictures and see if the ISO is changing to counteract changes in SS and f/stop.
Just my two cents. One of the other members with more expertise can probably help better.
 
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Elliesdad

New member
Thank you Paul. Indeed it was! And I see now I can lower it. I hate not knowing what I am doing and you just educated me! Thanks again.
 

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
The wife can't wait till tonight when partly cloudy skies will hopefully cooperate. Thank you again guys!
Glad it was an easy fix... I might suggest you spend some quality time with the D3400 Reference Manual (more comprehensive than the User Manual, but either would be a good start) or getting a copy of David Busch's Nikon D3400 Guide to Digital SLR Photography. Either book would drastically flatten the learning curve you're almost certain to run into.
 
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