Still-up Your Scope Part-2

Capturing the moon with Texture

This part of stilling up things is a bit more difficult. Here are the tips for taking these kind of pictures.

1. Low contrast and high sharpness mode works best for the moon.
2. This cannot be taken with camera in the hand. I used a tripod stand. Keeping the camera on a surface and using something (like wood pieces) for inclination works equally well.
3. Don’t use digital zoom as it will make the image look broken.
4. If your camera allows so ,better switch of the camera's auto focus and set the focal length to infinity. ( Its not a big deal, cameras which allow focussing always have this option)
5. Set a timer. The camera will shake as you press its shutter button. 2 seconds is good enough.
6. In manual settings mode, use lowest ISO( about 50-100), moderate shutter speed (1/5 to 1/40) and adjust aperture for appropriate brightness.Mine was 4.5.


If first picture doesn’t work for you. Try under various settings of exposure. The difference between all these pics is not just because of zoom level but the other settings like exposure and Image sensitivity as well ( if your camera allows you to program them manually) because this clarity cannot be achieved with auto shoot mode no matter how advanced the other features are.
Depending on the brightness of the moon, the sky and other factors the speed of the shutter and size of aperture may vary. The aperture here only takes care of exposure as depth of field is not a concern for such long distance object.