I have seen photos done with a Fujifilm S1800 of the moon, and I am not sure of how to receive a good moon shot with my camera. Just wondering if anyone has some ideas of how to achieve a decent shot of the moon with a bridge camera?
If it is anything like my camera, you should be able to get great shots of the moon.
A tripod will help you stablize the image so it will be clearer especially if you want to capture the detail.
If you do want to get detail; choose your farthest setting [infinity], set your exposure compensation down at least two full stops. Your manual will explain how it works on your camera. You will need to do this to lessen the bright light off the moon. Then set the timer, set the zoom as far out as possible, focus, push the shutter, and stand back.
Practice, practice, practice. Experiment with the zoom and the exposure settings. I think you will be pleasantly surprised at what you will be able to do with your camera.
I just read your post so I grabbed my son's Fujifilm S1600 and went outside to give it a go based on the way I do it with my DSLR. As long as the S1800 is the big brother of the S1600 then the process should be the same.
In your menus, find SPOT METERING - in the S1600 it's in the PHOTOMETRY menu under SELF-TIMER in SHOOTING MENU. Change it to SPOT METERING and then exit the menu. Set the top dial to A for APERTURE PRIORITY and select a large aperture/small number. On the S1600 I chose f/5.6 but you can go larger for sure. By choosing AP mode the camera automatically calculates the time the shutter is to be open for - it's kind of semi-automatic and really handy. I also reduced the size of the image to MEDIUM because, believe it or not, a smaller image gives you less noise in low light. I also set the ISO to 100 to keep grain/noise down.
Then I went outside and found the moon. Make sure you put the centre mark in your viewfinder/viewscreen directly on the moon and the camera will alter the exposure to suit the moon's brightness. Zoom right in then half press the take-pic-now button to focus and expose properly. Once it's done take the picture. Because it's a very fast exposure (due to the moon's brightness) you aren't really going to need a tripod.
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A tripod will help you stablize the image so it will be clearer especially if you want to capture the detail.
If you do want to get detail; choose your farthest setting [infinity], set your exposure compensation down at least two full stops. Your manual will explain how it works on your camera. You will need to do this to lessen the bright light off the moon. Then set the timer, set the zoom as far out as possible, focus, push the shutter, and stand back.
Practice, practice, practice. Experiment with the zoom and the exposure settings. I think you will be pleasantly surprised at what you will be able to do with your camera.
In your menus, find SPOT METERING - in the S1600 it's in the PHOTOMETRY menu under SELF-TIMER in SHOOTING MENU. Change it to SPOT METERING and then exit the menu. Set the top dial to A for APERTURE PRIORITY and select a large aperture/small number. On the S1600 I chose f/5.6 but you can go larger for sure. By choosing AP mode the camera automatically calculates the time the shutter is to be open for - it's kind of semi-automatic and really handy. I also reduced the size of the image to MEDIUM because, believe it or not, a smaller image gives you less noise in low light. I also set the ISO to 100 to keep grain/noise down.
Then I went outside and found the moon. Make sure you put the centre mark in your viewfinder/viewscreen directly on the moon and the camera will alter the exposure to suit the moon's brightness. Zoom right in then half press the take-pic-now button to focus and expose properly. Once it's done take the picture. Because it's a very fast exposure (due to the moon's brightness) you aren't really going to need a tripod.
Here's a link to the photo I just took -- https://plus.google.com/109444458601130021476/posts/Mt4ofJyZADP
You'll be able to see the EXIF info on that pic. Hope this helps, you'll get it in no time :)