Kodak Easyshare C195 14 Mega Pixels Digital Video Camera Logo

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Anonymous Posted on Mar 24, 2013

Can I take clear good pictures of a full moon on a clear night?

I tried to take pictures of a full moon on a clear night, I couldn't seem to get it, I tried several settings. I see on the scene selction that I have an ISO but don't know how to change it or if that would even work. Thanks Tina Kocsis

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kakima

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  • Kodak Master 102,366 Answers
  • Posted on Mar 25, 2013
kakima
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You're going to face two separate problems here.

One, the moon occupies a rather small portion of the night sky. Even fully zoomed in, the moon is going to be not much more than a bright spot in the sky.

Two, the camera is designed to assume that almost every scene is an average brightness. Given how much of the scene is a black sky, the camera will attempt to render the sky as average (what photographers call a "medium gray"). This will result in a picture with a gray sky and a featureless white blob for the moon.

If you think about it, the full moon is nothing more than a really big rock under a midday sun. Thus what you want is the same exposure as when taking a picture on a clear sunny day. Unfortunately the camera is going to be fooled by all that dark sky and try to compensate for it. What you really need is to be able to bypass the camera's light meter and set the proper exposure yourself. The C195, unlike more sophisticated cameras, doesn't allow you to do so. Sorry, but that's just the way it is.

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Is it a full moon to night

No. The last full moon was December 6, 2014 and the next full moon is January 5, 2015. December 22, 2014 is a new moon.
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I would like to be able to take a good picture of a full moon on a clear night.

You're going to face two separate problems here.

One, the moon occupies a rather small portion of the night sky. Even fully zoomed in, the moon is going to be not much more than a bright spot in the sky.

Two, the camera is designed to assume that almost every scene is an average brightness. Given how much of the scene is a black sky, the camera will attempt to render the sky as average (what photographers call a "medium gray"). This will result in a picture with a gray sky and a featureless white blob for the moon.

If you think about it, the full moon is nothing more than a really big rock under a midday sun. Thus what you want is the same exposure as when taking a picture on a clear sunny day. Unfortunately the camera is going to be fooled by all that dark sky and try to compensate for it. What you really need is to be able to bypass the camera's light meter and set the proper exposure yourself. The C195, unlike more sophisticated cameras, doesn't allow you to do so. Sorry, but that's just the way it is.
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How do I set the settings to take a night moon shot?

Assuming you mean pictures of the moon itself and not a night shot with the moon in it, set your camera to the manual exposure mode and ignore the light meter.

There's an old rule-of-thumb called the "Sunny Sixteen Rule." This states that the proper exposure under a midday sun is an aperture of f/16 and a shutter speed of 1 over the ISO. For example with an ISO 200 film or a digital sensor set at ISO 200 the proper exposure is f/16 and 1/200 second.

What does this have to do with night shots of the moon? Well, the moon is simply a large piece of rock under a cloudless midday sun. Thus the Sunny Sixteen Rule gives you a starting point for the exposure. You can then refine it by reviewing the picture on the LCD and looking at the histogram. The sky will go completely black and you won't see any stars, but you should be able to see at least some of the features of the lunar landscape.
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I assume you want a picture of the moon and don't particularly care what the sky looks like.
Consider a full moon. Just what are you taking a picture of? It's a landscape, right? Mountains, craters, etc. All under a bright midday sun without a cloud in the sky (the sky on the moon, not your sky). So what if the moon's a quarter of a million miles away from you, it's under the same sun. Yeah, it's a quarter of a million miles farther from the sun, but given the nearly one hundred million miles between the earth and the sun, the difference is negligible.
There's an old photography rule called the "Sunny-16 Rule." It says that the proper exposure under sunny conditions is f/16 at a shutter speed that is a reciprocal of the film's ISO rating. So, at ISO 200 the proper exposure would be f/16 at 1/200 second (or equivalent, such as f/11 at 1/400 second). You'll have to switch the camera to the Manual exposure mode to do this. Ignore anything the camera's light meter says.
Use this as a starting guideline. Take a picture and review it on the screen. Don't worry about the sky going pure black. You don't want the highlights to get blown out, or the moon will look like a white blob.
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Do i need anything special at night table top telescope i can not see anything

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The moon should be your first target at night.
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Hi When I try to take pictures of the moon at night, the all I get is bright light without any detail. The sensor seems overloaded and the image seems smudged. I have tried with the intelligent...

All automatic-exposure cameras try to render the scene as a middle gray. The moon is a small portion of the total image, so the camera concentrates on the sky. In trying to get enough light to make the sky go from black to gray, the moon gets completely overexposed. What you want is the moon properly exposed, even if that means the sky goes completely black.

For a full moon, you want the same exposure you would use at noon on a bright day. If you think about it for a moment, it becomes obvious. The full moon is simply a landscape at high noon. Unfortunately, the camera can't know that.

Set the camera to manual. Start with the "Sunny-16 Rule", which tells you to set the aperture to f/16 and the shutter speed to 1/ISO. So for example, set the ISO to 200, the aperture to f/16, and the shutter speed to 1/200. Look at the result on the screen and adjust the exposure as needed.

That was for a full moon. For other phases you may need to add exposure, but the "Sunny-16 Rule" will still give you a starting point.
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Pictures of the moon require a tripod. Night mode is a good starting place. After taking a test picture, if the moon seems too bright, you need to set the "exposure compensation" to the next lower number. Take another test photo and adjust as necessary one way or another. After you get a successful photo, you will need to crop it a lot to get the moon large enough.
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Hi, I have assembled my telescope, i can see through it in the day..but at night even though it is a full moon, it gets difficult to get a clear picture. The manual says you can see lots of stuff with it,...

You have a 3-4 inch reflector. DO NOT USE the 2x barlow. It creates too much magnification for that small telescope.

Put the eyepiece with the largest number written on it into the telescope and then try again.

Objects in the sky are very tiny. The scope must be pointed directly at them to see them.

Download a free star chart here:
http://www.skymaps.com

and try to locate a local astronomy club to get help with locating sky objects.
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