To get a good shot of the Moon /and Mars in August 2013

Kodiak

Senior Member
Hi everyone,

Here are some recommendations to increase your Moon/Mars keepers!

• The matrix metering is cool when you want to measure a whole scene and get the
••best readout for it, such as landscapes and others. For astronomical event, rarely
••a good option… except in you have a full frame in the moon! If you have the moon
••in full frame, there will be dark areas and these, the matrix cells can't cope well with.

• To shoot the whole moon in centred full frame, since it is round and doesn't fill the
••entire frame, ponderate central would be a more desirable option.

• If the moon is filling less then two thirds of the height of the frame and is not in
••the centre of it, then "spot metering" is the right option:
On the tripod with your frame set, take the red AF/AE reader over the moon,
and test it using the shutter speed if you are on M mode, or the EV +/- com-
pensation value selector if you are on A mode.

••••••••In any case, the metered zone should contain no black sky!

If there are two celestial objects, spot measure both, and average using the shutter
speed if you are on M mode, or the EV +/- compensation value selector if you are
on A mode. This is going to be a tricky one since Mars will not be as bright as the
Moon. The safest option would be HDR. Two shots, two exposures, and the final stack!

Since Mars is way over beyond the Moon, focus is set at ∞ on the Moon on a single shot!

I hope this is understandable because the next time around for this astronomical event
will be in 600 years… one should test for better position, better exposure…

Have a good time!

PS: Think to shoot the two, Moon and Mars, when they are not too close to each other!
In which case, the atmosphere will play you some dirty tricks… For HDR, just make sure,
when shooting Mars, that the Moon is not spilling any light in your lens. You will end up
with 2 different pictures that were correctly exposed, focused, and later, stacked. It is,
nevertheless, advisable to soot the two together on a same shot with the date and time
printed on the frame to prove that this is not a random montage, possibly done at some
other time!

Good luck to all!
 
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Kodiak

Senior Member


Hi Glenn, cloudy in Japan huh!

In central Europe is cooking time… scorching sun, no rain… the best for a canadian bear! =\
 

Blade Canyon

Senior Member
Good tips, Kodiak. For moon shots (I will post one later), I use manual mode and follow the F16 rule.* After all, the moon is in bright sunlight, and most attempts to meter it result in overexposure because the rest of the frame is dark. I start my moon shots by this guideline, then make small adjustments from there.

My shots of the last full moon had a bluish tint. They look better if I change them to B&W.


*F16 Rule: to estimate your exposure without a meter (on Earth): the correct exposure in bright sunlight is an aperture of F16 and a shutter speed of 1 over the ASA (ISO for you newbies). So if the ISO is 100, then F16 and 1/100 shutter speed is the correct exposure if you are shooting in bright sunlight. You can adjust from there if you want a faster shutter speed, shallower depth of field, etc.
 

Kodiak

Senior Member


The conversion to B&W was a too early decision: you could have tweaked the WB first
and the convert or not:

Good B&W always starts with the right colours!

I would like to see the picture… any chance?

Have a good day…
 

Blade Canyon

Senior Member


The conversion to B&W was a too early decision: you could have tweaked the WB first
and the convert or not:

Good B&W always starts with the right colours!

I would like to see the picture… any chance?

Have a good day…

Here are two pics. One is the last full moon, shot with a D600 through a 1,500 mm telescope (a Russian made Maksutov/Cassegrain). The second shot was made with a Sigma 70-300 mm zoom. For some reason, the EXIF data says the lens was at 220 mm when I shot this. Why would I not zoom in all the way???

Kodiak, your tip about the WB on the first pic worked great to get rid of the bluish tint. This is a color shot, not changed to grayscale.

moonnik.jpg

And ...

moonnik2.jpg
 

Kodiak

Senior Member
••

Kodiak, your tip about the WB on the first pic worked great to get rid of the bluish tint.


No tip! … just common sense (maybe that's the tip!)…

Ok, let's go:

1. The Moon, seen from outside the atmosphere, has a colour composite of 320 nm light
•••in blue, 415 nm in green and 689 nm in red.

NASA • Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter:
Colors on the Moon are dominantly controlled by variations in iron and titanium content.
The mare regions have low reflectance because they contain relatively high amounts of
iron oxide (FeO). Some mare basalts contain unusually high amounts of titanium oxide
(TiO2) in addition to iron oxide, making for even lower reflectance. TiO2 also shifts the
color of the mare from red to blue.​

2. The atmosphere plays some tricks of it's own on you and your Moon!
•••Since our layer of air is acting as an optical filter, and thus interfering in the colour perception
•••of the Moon, your sensor will capture the Moon with the colours of that "filter" and render it with
•••those given colours. Given colours heavily tempered by the light of the sun crossing through
•••our atmosphere!

3. So, our Moon has only one face but many "races". It may be blue, yellow, orange, red…
•••Poor thing! It has only one face but tries all the shades to make-up and you are still not happy!

4. Let's be practical!
•••Now that you know the wide spectrum of available colours, tweak the WB to get to the colour tones
•••you want in your rendition
•••For B&W, the choice of colours will have a direct influence in the rendition of details in your
•••monochrome final save.
 
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