Photos of the Moon are too Bright

Jobeleca

For the new moon I got some wonderful, but noisy shots of the Milky Way. For the next new moon I will be experimenting with stacking.

For the full moon I'm trying what I thought would be an easy shot with a 55-200mm VR lens, but no matter what I try I'm just getting a pure white disk instead of the details that I can see with the naked eye. What do you suggest?

Moose

Hey @Jobeleca - One little trick you can try is changing your metering mode to spot, setting your AF-area mode to single-point AF and your focus mode to AF-S. With these settings in place, aim the center focus point on the moon and take the shot.

Rather than metering the entire frame, this will allow you to evaluate the correct exposure for the moon. All the best!

Jobeleca

This was my second try at capturing the full moon and while the first try was artsy, it failed at actually capturing the moon. I used a Nikon D3200 with a 55-200mm lens at 200mm set at ISO 100, f/11, 1/125sec then cropped.

I set my camera to continuous photo bulb mode and captured 26 photos, then I merged them (see here).

Allen

Looks like you got it that time! When I shot the moon I used a 1000mm f/11 and took the shot of the moon just before you'd call it dark out (exact same settings too). That way in post processing when I adjust the sky to full black I deepened the shadows on the moon without blowing out the detail.