I wrote this after getting frustrated with overly technical moon photography guides that assume you need expensive setups. The Canon 60D I mention is actually from 2010 and still produces sharp lunar shots.
What's been your experience with budget gear vs expensive setups for lunar photography?
My daughter is just getting into photography, and I was hoping your guide would share more of how to set the exposure for moon shots (which can be tricky and unintuitive for beginners). You might want to add some examples and what your settings were, as well as how you derived those settings.
It's really just trial and error. Set ISO to ~800, open the lens all the way, and fiddle with shutter speed to dial it in. Shutter speed is dependent on your zoom. If you're using a wide angle lens to catch the whole sky, you'll get ~10 sec of exposure before you start to see trails, it you're zoomed in, it may be as low as a half second. If you've dialed in the shutter speed to not get trails and the moon is too bright, lower the ISO. Just take a few test shots, dial it in, and then take 3-5 shots in succession and stack them in software.
I’ve been trying to get into astrophotography with what I’ve got. I need to get a real camera, but I’ve gotten a few good shots of Saturn and the moon simply by lining up my iPhone lens to the eyepiece. Waaaayyy more tedious and difficult than it sounds, but it’s what I’ve got to work with.
Celestron makes a clamp for the eyepiece->phone, with little xyz adjustment pinions; imho is worth the money, especially compared to an upgraded photography rig.
Eventually I got a Fuji X-T20, which is plenty of resolution, though I'd warn that some photography software doesn't support the X-Trans filter format vs Bayer. But I can handshoot the moon with a 250mm zoom
One thing to keep in mind is that any modern camera body will be fine for the most part. Buy a used Canon 40D for like $150, then spend the real money on a fast lens ~F2ish. Can then upgrade the body as needed. This is how I started.
What's been your experience with budget gear vs expensive setups for lunar photography?
Generally there are some broad categories:
1) tracked vs untracked mounts
2) shooting single frames vs shooting with high FPS and processing that into a resulting image.
Great write up!
Eventually I got a Fuji X-T20, which is plenty of resolution, though I'd warn that some photography software doesn't support the X-Trans filter format vs Bayer. But I can handshoot the moon with a 250mm zoom
Great article, though ... thank you. I have been wanting to take a nice picture of the moon forever, but mine always turn out shite.