| It is very hard for an ordinary digital
camera to cope with the lighting conditions for photographing the Moon.
With mine, you can adjust the exposure a little manually, but you can't
do manual focus, so you're not in good control. The bright Moon against
the black background gives the camera software fits (overexposure causes
blur, lens flares), but with just a little light in the sky, the automatic
focus and exposure does better than manual. Adjusting brightness
and contrast with Photoshop can bring out some details in the final image.
All of the following images were taken with a 3x zoom. Must use tripod!
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Waxing Crescent 31Jan2006 7:14 PM Elevation: 16.5° (Western Sky) FUJIFILM A340 Clear Must have a tripod! Auto Exposure Adjustments to brightness and contrast using Photoshop, amounts not recorded. |
1st Quarter 05Feb2006 12:00 Midnight (coincidence!) Elevation: 26° (Western Sky) FUJIFILM A340 Overcast Manual Exposure: -1.8 Photoshop: Brightness: -21 Overexposure blurs edges, makes disk look larger. |
Waxing Gibbous 09Feb2006 5:15 PM Elevation: 24° (Eastern Sky) FUJIFILM A340 Clear Auto Exposure Using Photoshop, decreasing brightness (-55) and increasing contrast (+55) brings up lunar surface detail. |
Full 12Feb2006 6:45 PM Elevation: 7.5° (Eastern Sky) FUJIFILM A340 Clear Auto Exposure Tree branches in foreground. Cropped, not otherwise adjusted. (see wide shot directly below) |
Waning Gibbous 16Feb2006 10.49 PM Elevation: 12.5° (Eastern Sky) FUJIFILM A340 Clear Manual Exposure: -2.1 Photoshop: Brightness: -83 Contrast: +35 Tree branches show as dark areas along upper curve. |
3rd Quarter 22Mar2006 6:49 AM Elevation: 26° (Due South?) FUJIFILM A340 Overcast Auto Exposure Cropped, not otherwise adjusted. Had to wait for cloud openings. 
Altering brightness and contrast (-30/+50) shows additional surface detail, but makes the sky look darker. |
Waning Crescent 24Feb2006 6:22 AM 13.5° (Eastern Sky) FUJIFILM A340 Partly Cloudy Auto Exposure Cropped, not otherwise adjusted. 
24Feb2006 7:18 AM 19.5° (Eastern Sky) FUGIFILM A340 Partly Cloudy Auto Exposure Photoshop: Cropped, Contrast +50 |
Full Moon Over Iverson St. 12Feb2006 Looking east along Iverson. In the foreground, rear windshield of a parked car. Moon shows between trees lining the street. Bright street lights and Moon both show long, up-and-down "flares" from camera optics. Had to wait for cloud openings. Used Autolevels adjustment on Photoshop. |