How can I sharpen up photo of full moon? I am using F8.0, 1/125, and ISO 100 Limited by settings available on SX60 HD. Works fine on 3/4 moon, but loses detail on brighter full moon. Thank you, Keith
It doesn't sound like a sharpening issue to me, the process of sharpening is increasing contrast to edges in a photo,you need a reasonably sharp edge in the first place, and then you can accentuate what detail was there in the first place. I also warn against over sharpening an image, it does not look natural. Lets talk your issue, if you use the same setting as the 3/4 moon on the full moon you will be over exposing the image quite a bit. I am guessing at least a stop or so. Try using something like 1/320 on the full moon and see the detail on the surface show back up. With digital you always want to be careful to expose for the highlights, you can bring normally detail back in on the shadows but if there is no detail in the highlight you can not invent it after the shot. This is contrary to the film days, we used to expose for shadows to ensure the detail was in the shadow and it did not go all the way to black, then when you developed the film you tried to pull out the detail in the highlights.
Thank you so much for your rapid and extremely helpful response Johnsey. I will certainly try that. And tonight is full moon, so thanks again. Regards Keith
To expose correctly for the moon, try the looney eleven rule for a guide, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looney_11_rule. I am not sure what exposure settings you are able to set on your camera, but if you are able to manually input the settings of ISO 100, 1/100, f11, or a variation of it (ISO 200, 1/200, f11, or ISO 400, 1/400, f11, etc). If you are still having problems, please post an image or two and we should be able to pitch in and help you out. Gary
