Moon Shot with 18-55mm Kit Lense

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oops2001

New member
Hello,

For the last few days I was trying to do a Moon Shot with my default 18-55mm lense and all I kept getting was a white spot. Today I tried playing with few settings on Manual and finally the photo looked something like a moon. I am aware that minimum 200mm should do a decent job for Moon click but just to learn the impact of different parameters tried this from what I have at the moment.

Lot's of obstacles and light pollution where I live. This is what I was getting intially.

SXX.JPG

Change settings from the same spot and it came out better. ( cropped image )

No Tripod. ISO 100. F 5.6 with 1/60 Shutter Speed. ( Spot Metering )

SXX3.JPG
 
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paul04

Senior Member
Good start, as the moon is quite bright, you have to adjust the shutter speed and/or aperture, like you did for the second shot.

Keep the ISO low,

And yes you are correct, a long lens will help, 200mm+, I know a few people who have connected the camera to a telescope (with the correct adaptor)

I did a photo of the moon the other day, and my settings were F6.3, ss 1/100, iso 100, camera set on a tripod.
 
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oops2001

New member
paul04 said:
Good start, as the moon is quite bright, you have to adjust the shutter speed and/or aperture, like you did for the second shot.

Keep the ISO low,

And yes you are correct, a long lens will help, 200mm+, I know a few people who have connected the camera to a telescope (with the correct adaptor)

I did a photo of the moon the other day, and my settings were F6.3, ss 1/100, iso 100, camera set on a tripod.
Click to expand...

Thanks Paul. That's something new I heard to connect a telescope to a lense. Does it work good ? I am planning to buy a 55-200mm for distant object photography. Which will be a good choice of lense to click milky way or constellations ?

I have a confusion here, how do you decide for F stops ? I mean If we were to choose F6.3 or 8 or 10 ( just example ) as they are close in range for the same shutter speed. Will changing from F5.3 to F6.3 to next F with same shutter speed will have impact on more sharpness or 'vibrance' of image.

How to decide for F on a particular mm and then balance F with SS ?

Thanks
 
Roy1961

Roy1961

Senior Member
Contributor
oops2001 said:
Thanks Paul. That's something new I heard to connect a telescope to a lense. Does it work good ? I am planning to buy a 55-200mm for distant object photography. Which will be a good choice of lense to click milky way or constellations ?

I have a confusion here, how do you decide for F stops ? I mean If we were to choose F6.3 or 8 or 10 ( just example ) as they are close in range for the same shutter speed. Will changing from F5.3 to F6.3 to next F with same shutter speed will have impact on more sharpness or 'vibrance' of image.

How to decide for F on a particular mm and then balance F with SS ?

Thanks
Click to expand...
If you can save for a 55-300, it was way better than my old 55-200 for moon shots, you did a great job with the 55mm, very nice.

sent from Pandora's blue lagoon
 
D

Don Kuykendall_RIP

RIP :(
oops2001 said:
Which will be a good choice of lense to click milky way or constellations ?

I have a confusion here, how do you decide for F stops ? I mean If we were to choose F6.3 or 8 or 10 ( just example ) as they are close in range for the same shutter speed. Will changing from F5.3 to F6.3 to next F with same shutter speed will have impact on more sharpness or 'vibrance' of image.

How to decide for F on a particular mm and then balance F with SS ?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Actually for the Milky Way you need a very wide lens like your 18-55 set on 18mm. You also need a very dark area. That is harder to find than you would think. I do not know the area of India that you are from but you will need to go far away from the nearest city.

Changing the Aperture from F6.3 to 8 decreases the amount of light and to get the same exposure you would need to increase the shutter speed to compensate. You need to study the "Exposure Triangle" to understand the basis of photography.

This youtube video should answer a few questions for you

 
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oops2001

New member
Roy1961 said:
If you can save for a 55-300, it was way better than my old 55-200 for moon shots, you did a great job with the 55mm, very nice.

sent from Pandora's blue lagoon
Click to expand...

Thank you. I was just checking the prices for 55-300 and 55-200 and difference is exactly double here. Based on your experience is it worth ?
 
Roy1961

Roy1961

Senior Member
Contributor
it did in the creators, much sharper, maybe I just got better at it? but you can never have to much zoom for the moon or wildlife?
 
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oops2001

New member
Don Kuykendall said:
Actually for the Milky Way you need a very wide lens like your 18-55 set on 18mm. You also need a very dark area. That is harder to find than you would think. I do not know the area of India that you are from but you will need to go far away from the nearest city.

Changing the Aperture from F6.3 to 8 decreases the amount of light and to get the same exposure you would need to increase the shutter speed to compensate. You need to study the "Exposure Triangle" to understand the basis of photography.

This youtube video should answer a few questions for you

Click to expand...

Thanks. Yes I am going through it and also experiment with different settings. Will the standard 18-55mm can do the job for milky way if I am in darker place away from all the city lights ?
 
O

oops2001

New member
Roy1961 said:
it did in the creators, much sharper, maybe I just got better at it? but you can never have to much zoom for the moon or wildlife?
Click to expand...

Great, would love to see creators in my shot too :). Is the clarity of of both the lenses are equally good ?
I was going through few blogs and some people were saying that clarity of 200mm is better than 300mm ( considering cropped image ).
 
D

Don Kuykendall_RIP

RIP :(
oops2001 said:
Thanks. Yes I am going through it and also experiment with different settings. Will the standard 18-55mm can do the job for milky way if I am in darker place away from all the city lights ?
Click to expand...

Not the best choice but will give you something to start with.

Here is one I shot in September using my D7100 with a Tokina 11-16 if I remember correctly.

september_03_2015_-_16_mm_-_iso_3200_-_15.0_sec_at_f_-_2.8_-_-_.jpg
 
D

Don Kuykendall_RIP

RIP :(
oops2001 said:
That's brilliant. What were the settings for this shot ?
Click to expand...


This was shot with my D7100 using the Tokina 11-16 @16mm
ISO 3200
f.2.8
15sec exposure

15 seconds is about as long a shot as you can do. Anything longer the stars start to move and they will not look as sharp. I played with this a lot and 15 was max. Many people will tell you that they go longer but if you zoom in to their shots you will see lines and not dots for stars.

Here is where you will run into problems with the lens you have. The fastest it will go is 3.5 so since you can not use a longer shutter speed because of star movement you would have to increase the ISO to 6400 to make up the difference in the aperture. With your camera that would be very grainy. Getting a much faster lens would be what you would need to do. Using a f1.8 lens would allow you to lower the ISO to 1600 which would be much better.

Not telling you that you can't shoot with what you have or to go buy a new lens but instead showing you what the differences in aperture does to your shot.
 
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