Photographping The Moon With A Digital Camera

**Jackie (Admin)** Thu May 19, 2011 9:27 pm

http://selectivepedia.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-to-take-picture-of-full-half-or.html

Please consider this a guideline, and refer to your manual or web support for specific details.

"If you have point-and-shoot camera, than most likely you have the following three metering modes that are usually changed using menus: evaluative [square brackets with circle with dot in the middle], center-weighted average metering [just a bracket without a circle and dot] and spot [square brackets with circle without a dot] metering. The spot metering in point-and-shoot camera is same as partial metering in SLR. This is in reference to Canon EOS 20D and Canon PowerShot SD600. The spot metering meters the area within the spot AE point at the centre of the LCD monitor.

In addition to all above you need to find out on your camera how to adjust the exposure. Standard exposure level is when the level mark is in the middle or at zero.

Easy Digital Camera Settings for Taking Photo of the Moon
[0] Set your camera to Programmed Mode P where Av and Tv is automatically adjusted, however, still letting you set all the parameters as asked below. You can do it manually, but why not take the advantage of the camera’s intelligence and save yourself a time. Do not try Fully Auto Mode.
[1] Set up your camera on the tripod or stable object to support your arms.
[2] Set to ISO 200. You do not need higher than that, as the moon is already very bright. Higher ISO will make photo grainy.
[3] Set or ensure that the AF focal point is on the centre of the view finder.
[4] Set the metering mode to Partial on SLR or Spot on Point-and-Shoot. A very important setting, otherwise, the moon will be one big bright ball.
[5] Set focal length to 300mm or 400mm. This is if you have any of the lenses with that focal length, or set to maximum on your lens.
[6] Set Exposure to -1. You may want to experiment with this depending how bright the moon is, some times you may go as low as -2.

Note the Following:
Av the Aperture priority mode - is the lens opening
Tv the Shutter priority mode - is the shutter speed
In the P Programmed mode these are adjusted automatically."

NOTE: This information may not work for all cameras.