ELI5- why is it so difficult to take a decent picture of the moon on your phone?

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Edit: I forgot to add a message. It’s so pretty when you look at it with your eyes but when you take a picture of it through your phone, it is a pathetic white blob.

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6 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

The moon is far away, the moon is small compared with the whole area covered by the camera, your phone tries to be smart but it isn’t as smart as your brain.

Why is your brain smarter than a phone? When looking at the moon over the horizon your brain will enhance the moon and make you think it to be much bigger than what it actually received on your eyes. Kind of a funky zoom feature.

Your phone software tries to get the object it thinks is important to be non-blurred. It could be possible that when looking at the phone it looks very sharp and big. And when pressing the button the phone moves a bit and the phone tries to refocus. And then boom, your picture is taken sharp close by while the moon is far away.

So get a tripod, lock the phone, disable the smartness and zoom in.

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