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…the rest of this post is exposure notes…

All photos from Canon S3 IS Powershot (point and shoot) – manual mode, Aperture 7.1, ISO 100, Auto White Balance, Auto focus (spot metering) – the shutter speeds I tried are noted below each photo. Above have been cropped but otherwise are straight out of the camera. No tripod – hand held using continuous shooting mode.

Aside from being just fun and I love the moon, I have been frustrated in the past with my ability to get the kind of shot I wanted of the moon. And although I have a tripod, sometimes I just do not feel like getting it out and doing the whole setup – especially at 4:30 a.m. when the moon is in the perfect spot…

The S3 is a “point and shoot”, but it is a very fully featured “point and shoot”, with the whole gamut of manual and semi-manual features available as well as fully and semi-automatic settings. I have been shooting in mostly Manual and Aperture Priority for the last 6 months, courtesy of various online tutorials as well as an excellent book on Exposure by Bryan Peterson and generally a lot of trial and error and re-reading. It is fun when the stuff finally makes sense and I get what I intended/hoped to get!

I found the moon technique fascinating because it is somewhat backwards to what I thought and in fact to what the camera light meter thinks. Ivory Hut (see link below) explains that moonlight is actually reflected sunlight and so the exposure must be similar to what you use shooting in sunlight…IF you are intending to get a clear moon with surface texture (vs an exposure of trees, clouds with backlight from the moon). So….although my camera meter on full auto set an aperture of 2.7 (wide open), a shutter speed of 1/8 (pretty slow) and an ISO of 800, that exposure results in the moon being a white blob. Closing down the aperture (7.1, i.e. squinting), lowering the ISO (“film speed), increasing the shutter speed, using spot metering for focusing directly on the moon results in the detailed exposure. Continuous shooting mode is the anti-tripod trick … with the shutter speed faster, continuous shooting (I hold my breath and try to brace on a tree or something) helps ensure that at least one or two shots in the stream are in focus. The moon was so bright this morning that at the shutter speeds above, nearly all the shots were focused.

The entire explanation from Ivory Hut in a guest post at Pioneer Woman titled: Shoot for the Moon is worth a look if you are interested in this kind of shot. Ivory Hut uses the Canon Powershot S5 which is one model newer than mine, but the primary difference is a faster (and newer) processor and higher ISO – they have the same lens…the point, she is also using a “point and shoot”. This technique is potentially doable on cameras that allow you to adjust aperture, shutter speed, ISO and shooting mode (continuous).