PSA: Stop using the default white balance on moon photos

I kept seeing these blown out, blobby moon shots in the group where the surface detail is completely flat white. I finally checked my camera settings and realized Auto White Balance was washing out all the cool crater shadows and grey tones. Once I switched to Daylight or Shade preset, the texture in the lunar surface popped like crazy - has anyone else noticed a huge difference just from toggling that one setting?

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derek_burns2d ago

Oh man, this 100%. I spent months getting frustrated with milky looking moon shots before I figured out the same thing. In my experience, Daylight white balance is the way to go, but your mileage may vary if you shoot during twilight vs full darkness. What really sealed it for me was dialing in a custom white balance around 5500K and then dropping the exposure compensation by a stop or two. That combo brought out the grey basalt plains and those sharp crater rims without any of that artificial cool blue tint the camera defaults to. Try it on a quarter moon too, the terminator line where shadow meets light gets crazy sharp.