D90 Time-lapse

I

Ihaveissues

New member
Hi Guys
I'm trying to shoot a time-lapse with my D90 of the Moon and Stars using 55-200mm zoom lens set at 200mm and in Manual mode. However, I zoom as close to the moon as possible i.e 200mm and set my settings to not make the Moon too bright to blow out all the detail. This works fine but if I set the shutter too slow it picks up the stars but blows out the moon. Ive set the iso to 160, shutter to 1/60 and aperture to F6.3. What am I doing wrong people please!!!
 
that's not wrong, it's perfectly correct and predictable. slower shutter, blown out moon. the solution is to not set the shutter too slow. or am i missing something?
 
Apparently, as I have found out in other Nikon forums, the moon is lit by the sun so needs a quicker shutter than the stars, which are dim need a long shutter. So as I'm aware cannot shoot the moon and the stars simultaneously.
 
If I'm understanding your problem correctly you're unable to get proper exposure for both the moon & the stars at the same time. When you expose for the moon the stars are darker than you want, when you expose for the stars the moon is brighter than you want. Correct?

If this is the case then as far as I know there's not much you can do other than get yourself as away from civilization as possible. Even then I'm not sure you can fully expose the stars without blowing out the moon, they're just a dimmer light source.

You can try a graduated ND filter & keep the moon in the darker portion of the grad but this would probably look a little funny. Never know till you try.

**seems you already figured this out**
 
oh, i see. technically the stars are obviously much brighter than the moon but so small and diffracted both through atmosphere and glass, that they need extra exposure. i would expose for the moon and correct the stars in post. if that's not enough i agree nd filters are the way to go. there are spot nd's for such purposes from cokin for example.
 
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are you trying to get a timelapse of the moon across the sky though? that means moving the spot along of course, and when viewed in motion the spot may call some attention if not following exactly.
 
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