east of San Francisco, small town called Vacaville

So, I guess you're not afraid of earthquakes? I just looked outside..........no moon visible.

Sunny, 30 sec at f/anything is gonna be way, way, way overexposed.
Bring your ISO down lower than 400 if you have the ability to do so - say 200 or 100 (200 is as low as I can go with my Nikon).

I just looked outside: here in Wisconsin the moon is bright and full, the sky is clear. If and when you can see a moon that looks like that, try 1/100th at f/8 and then see what your histogram looks like. If the peak is way over up against the right side, change to f/11 and take another shot. If the histogram is still over to the right, change to f/16. If it's still over, bump your shutter up to 1/200th or 1/250th (whatever you have).

Now, if your histogram peak starts out over on the left side (underexposed), go the other way. If you started at 1/100th at f/8, change to f/5.6 or change the shutter to 1/50th. If the histogram peak is still on the left side, lower the shutter to 1/25th or 1/30th. You are on a tripod so slower shutter speeds are not a problem.

I don't know any magic way -- for me it's trial and error.

Rusty

Since there's no moon, I can't try your suggestions, Rusty, but I printed them out for next time. Thank you for taking the time to explain. I was trying to follow one of the guides I was reading on photographing an eclipse. I can take my ISO down to 80. I just took some pictures in the house using manual exposure and put them on my computer. IF there's anything that's half way decent, I'll post my first venture in Manual. That's a big, big if, though.

Just to show how little I know my camera, it was set at 1/30 of a second, not 30 seconds. I have so much to learn.

NO moon here either, completely clouded over, just my luck. Hope someone gets a shot.

I've got a real clear sky. nice moon. Almost totally dark, dark, maroonish with a very thin sliver of bright light left on one side. Sorry to say, it's just too darned cold for me outside. Guess I'll wait for the next one in 2010 .

Rusty

OK, I decided I was being a wuss,
It isn't anything to put on the wall but it does illustrate just how easy it is to blow out highlights with something like this. The top left is the only one I think is half-way decent.



The moon was almost fully obscured with a thin rim of light on the right side. The shots were taken at the same time -- 3 minutes elapsed from the first to the last -- so the apparent change in light is due to overexposure rather than progression of the eclipse.

Here is one taken 50 minutes later when a good part of the moon had been revealed.



That's much more difficult to capture because of the huge variation in lighting.

Oh well, maybe I can do a better job in 2020

Rusty

Great moon shots Rusty.
No such luck here.....overcast....expletives deleted.....
Chas

Rusty,
I didn't have any better luck, even back in August I couldn't get great focus no matter what I tried. I'm thinking, at least partially, it may be due to the atmosphere and the moisture and pollutants and maybe even temperature gradiants. Well like you said, we have two years to research and perfect our technique.

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