Light metering night photos of the moon - any ideas?

I've been playing around with taking photos of the moon and the first thing that jumps out at you is that your light meter and suggested shutter speed is way off. If you use these settings your image will be completely blown out. Only by trial and error was I able to get the proper exposure and sadly it required me to bump the shutter up to the point that the little arrow in the viewfinder was maxed out on the under-exposed side and had begun to flash (meaning I was no longer able to count the number of stops below the suggested exposure).

So my question is this - is there way I can predict the proper exposure w/o having to bump the exposure arrow some random number below the point at which you can still count the steps? Or maybe I should rephrase my question and ask how to you meter a subject like the moon against a black background like the night sky and get the proper exposure? Yes, I think that's the right question to ask.

Btw - I also tried altering the EV as far as 2.0 w/o achieving a good exposure so it seems at this point simply lowering the exposure by some unknown number of stops seems the way to go. Maybe a combo of both EV and shutter speed will at least allow me to count the stops but hopefully there's a better way than this.

Go manual, forget about the meter. The moon is exposed to a full sunlight… F16 1/125 for iso 125 is a start. From there there might be a few stops difference but you'll be closer than using the light meter. JMHO

Marcel said:

Go manual, forget about the meter. The moon is exposed to a full sunlight… F16 1/125 for iso 125 is a start. From there there might be a few stops difference but you'll be closer than using the light meter. JMHO

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Ahhh, the Sunny 16 rule. Great idea Marcel, thanks! That would be a nice place to start but in a perfect world there would be some way to predict what settings to use with the light meter. Maybe figure out the right exposure and then count the clicks below the point at which the arrow goes "flashy"?

Mojo-F said:

Ahhh, the Sunny 16 rule. Great idea Marcel, thanks! That would be a nice place to start but in a perfect world there would be some way to predict what settings to use with the light meter. Maybe figure out the right exposure and then count the clicks below the point at which the arrow goes "flashy"?

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If that's the way you'd like to go, I'd say use the spot meter right on the moon and overexpose by about 2/3rds of a stop. That should get you very close.

Marcel said:

If that's the way you'd like to go, I'd say use the spot meter right on the moon and overexpose by about 2/3rds of a stop. That should get you very close.

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No, that would be the opposite direction. I have to under expose in a massive way to keep from over exposing the image. That's the problem, I expose the moon at the suggested shutter speed and the moon is way blown out, no detail at all. So I keep raising up the shutter speed to the point that the little arrow that shows how many stops under it's suggested exposure speed starts flashing. I think the problem is the auto exposure meter is designed to give exposure X based on some average amount of light. And since everything else in the frame is black except the moon, it crank's up the exposure in order to achieve some desired average. So my problem has been one of just trial and error on how much to underexpose the image in order to maintain some level of detail on the moon and once you get into the "flashy" point you can no longer count the number of stops below you have gone. Does that make any sense?

Mojo-F said:

No, that would be the opposite direction. I have to under expose in a massive way to keep from over exposing the image. That's the problem, I expose the moon at the suggested shutter speed and the moon is way blown out, no detail at all. So I keep raising up the shutter speed to the point that the little arrow that shows how many stops under it's suggested exposure speed starts flashing. I think the problem is the auto exposure meter is designed to give exposure X based on some average amount of light. And since everything else in the frame is black except the moon, it crank's up the exposure in order to achieve some desired average. So my problem has been one of just trial and error on how much to underexpose the image in order to maintain some level of detail on the moon and once you get into the "flashy" point you can no longer count the number of stops below you have gone. Does that make any sense?

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I was thinking about "spot metering" that would only cover the moon… If you use average or the whole area, since you have a lot of black this is why you have to under expose.

Marcel said:

I was thinking about "spot metering" that would only cover the moon… If you use average or the whole area, since you have a lot of black this is why you have to under expose.

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Oh, I see. Yes, I'm on spot metering, or at least I'm 95% sure I am. Maybe I should have double checked that I was on a narrow spot, if it's not then I think you've solved the issue!

Also, because the moon is relatively small in the viewfinder, the focus "spot" is larger than the moon and will have black on both sides. Perhaps that is the problem and I should wait until the moon is full enough to fit completely in the spot....

The moon reflects the sun. Start with the basic daylight exposure for sunlight. (1/125 at f/16 or f/11 at ISO 125) then tweak it from there.

The moon shot in my gallery was shot at 1/320, f6.3, EV-5. What works best for me is a faster shutter speed and under exposing. I would keep it between f5.6 and 8 to reduce diffraction.

Okay, I think I'm getting closer to what I'm looking for with my moon shots. I'm coming up with a formula on how many stops below the suggested shutter speed. I've also maxed out the exposure delay at 3 secs. This one seems to have a little better detail, huh?

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