How to shoot the Moon and Stars??

[akumos]

Hi all

I have a Kodak EasyShare Z710 (Not the best) but I like it.

Has 7.1mp and 10x Optical zoom. Tons of different settings and a tripod.

Can anyone advise on how to take good shots of the Moon and Stars in the night sky?

I've tried shooting the moon and stars and this is what I cam up with.

This was the north star attempt:


http://www.pbase.com/akumos/image/73870273

The moon through a tree (was great before I shot it):


http://www.pbase.com/akumos/image/73870299

And a close up of the moon (not too bad but NO detail):


http://www.pbase.com/akumos/image/73870312

Any advise is great. Thanks.

[ericvision]

To photograph the stars, you need to use a long exposure. Problem with that is that you have to track the movement of the stars with a motor system on your tripod.

The problem showing in your picture is that you had your hand on the camera while you took the photo - stars are such tiny points of light that the shake from your hands will mess them up. If you can't use a remote shutter then use the self-timer function on your camera so that you are not actually touching the camera when it takes the photo. That way you'll get either a point or a uniform star trail in the sky.

Avoid windy days!

The problem you have with the moon is that it is massively over-exposed. Do you have a manual mode on your camera? If so, put your aperture setting to its widest (lowest number) - the moon from the distance you are away can be considered a flat object so depth of field is not a problem.

Point at the moon and experiment with different shutter speeds. If it is too dark make them slower, if it is blown out like in your picture make them faster. You should have plenty of time to play with the moon, but remember that bugger moves too!

Good luck



P.S. You would be better posting this in the technical questions forum...

[gummyb]

Moon is 1/125 at f8 for ISO 100. The setting is ALWAYS the same.

See my Moon over San Francisco gallery.

http://www.pbase.com/gummyb/san_francisco_moonlight

[akumos]

Thank for your replies.

I've put my camera to these settings and through the view finer it looks great!! amazing even!! but when I take it's just pitch black

Any ideas?

[yardbird]

Just a guess, but make sure the flash is off.

[akumos]

Tried that, but thanks for your suggestion.

[fieldfest]

for star trails just stick it on a tripod at your widest aperture and leave it open for as long as you like

this one was 839 seconds but is affected badly by light pollution from a town about 15 miles away

[akumos]

Ok, i took all your comments into consideration and played about with the manual settings on my camera. This is the best I cam up with:


http://www.pbase.com/akumos/image/74716929

It's still too bright. The settings I have are:

Letters P, A, S, M (No idea what they mean)

then I have f8.0 to f2.8

1/1000 to 1/4 then below i got to 8.0" which takes AGES to take a photo

then from iso64 to 400

help me get the perfect settings please!!

[akumos]

hello... anyone viewing this topic??

[steveprice]

The settings I have are:

Letters P, A, S, M (No idea what they mean)

A: manual mode is "M'. All the others will get it wrong. But for the record P means programmed (the camera makes all the decisions); A means aperture priority (you set the aperture e.g. f8 and the camera works out the shutter speed); S means shutter priority (you set the shutter speed and the camera works out the aperture). The problem with the moon is that you have a very light object on a very dark background and the camera gets confused, so dont let it work out anything, set to M, manual.

then I have f8.0 to f2.8

A: set it to f8 - according to out friend above

1/1000 to 1/4 then below i got to 8.0" which takes AGES to take a photo

A: according to our friend above set this to 1/125th

then from iso64 to 400

A: set this to 100ISO - according to our friend above

help me get the perfect settings please!![/quote]

Also use a long lens. Our friend above did. For example my 100mm lens is not long enough.

Take the photo. Post it here. Let me know and I will tell you what to adjust the settings to, if necessary.

Cheers

Steve Price

PS Just looked up the Kodak Easyshare it has a maximum focal length of 380mm so use the lens at full extension.

[akumos]

Thanks Steve

Thanks ever so much for taking the time to respond. One more question till I shoot again. What settings do I use on my camera to make sure it's at full focal length.

You can tell i'm a begginer.

[creativewisegal]

Hey, don't get discouraged. I'm a beginner also and decided I wanted to shoot the moon. It took a few attempts, but I finally got one that I was happy with. It wouldn't win any awards, but I was pleased. I just own an Olympus C-765 UltraZoom. Nothing fancy at all! Used a tripod and digital zoom (ick). Got this by setting the camera to 1/200 at 5.6:


http://www.pbase.com/creativewisegal/image/75099259

Keep shooting!
angela

[becky_stead]

I agree dont give up keep trying and youll get something your really happy with. Remember though you need a really sturdy tripod and a cable release. I took these in America. My first ever attempts and all i did was plug in my cable release pop the camera onto a tripod set the camera on bulb (which is a shutter speed setting that allows you to have as long an exposre as you like or your battery will allow!!) and that was it left them both for 45 mins and this is the result. youll get there in the end.

[mikelong]

See below

[mikelong]

Night phtography is easy and fun! A tripod is NOT always necessary nor is a motorized tracking device unless you what to capture points of light such as planets or nebula very far away. For the moon it's really simple, and you can shoot in program mode so long as you know how to "fool' your in-camera meter and adjust exposure accordingly. I always use spot metering, and usually, if the moon is full, underexpose by one stop. I can always bring out shadow details later on in Photoshop, but burned out highlights can not be corrected. I want detail in the craters so underexposure works well for this. If you shoot with a VR lens (vibration reduction), which I highly recommend, you can hand-hold many of your shots three to four stops slower than normal, which was the case with the photo below.
http://www.pbase.com/mikelong/image/75160360.

I almost always search for an interesting foreground to include with the sky because there's probably more than 6 billion photos out there just of the moon, which becomes rather redunant. I try to avoid artificial city lights because of the ugly yellow/orange/green cast caused by artificial lighting, which almost always appears on the image and is difficult to correct in post editing. You can, however, create very interesting images by shooting city lights when the sky is not completely black (i.e. dark, cobalt blue).

Finally, for capturing points of light, not star trails, remember this equation: 600 divided by the focal length of your lens equals the number of seconds you can expose before those points of light become trails. If you're shooting at 300mm you divide that number into 600 and the resulting number in seconds is 2, which means you can shoot the sky for 2 seconds. How easy is that?!! if you shoot with a 20mm lens you can make an exposure for 30 seconds, and 50mm translates to 12 seconds. The possibilities are nearly limitless. Keep it simple and make notes along the way.

Here's a few examples, sorry for my rambling

http://www.pbase.com/mikelong/image/56911744

http://www.pbase.com/mikelong/image/75160360

http://www.pbase.com/mikelong/image/75445102

http://www.pbase.com/mikelong/image/49837338

http://www.pbase.com/mikelong/image/49649369

http://www.pbase.com/mikelong/image/49842471

http://www.pbase.com/mikelong/image/50011176

http://www.pbase.com/mikelong/image/50200072

http://www.pbase.com/mikelong/image/50195901

http://www.pbase.com/mikelong/image/49966995

http://www.pbase.com/mikelong/image/58504064

http://www.pbase.com/mikelong/image/49966988

http://www.pbase.com/mikelong/image/47247641

http://www.pbase.com/mikelong/image/52380256

http://www.pbase.com/mikelong/image/74589102[[/img]