Random Early morning blog: Shooting the moon.


Kind of tutorial on shooting the moon. Hit the jump to learn more.


When I first started taking pictures with a dSLR I took the per-requisite pictures of Sunset/Sunrise, Flowers, inanimate objects, Landscape and at night of course I did the moon.

And like all beginners, I didn't know what I was doing but I had a decent camera and I thought I knew the jest of it. Here's was what I was thinking then. Since It was at night I need long exposure time and wide open aperture. The moon is far away so I need the longest lenses I have. So I went to the tallest parking garage I could, set up a tripod and starting firing away.





I thought I got some good shots but as I was looking at other shot of the moon from other photographers, Yes, they look cool with all the clouds and stuff but I was wondering where all the detail was. Pretty much the only thing I got right was the long lens.

I've ask other photographers for help and their answers made a lot of sense. So I'll share it with you guys.

This is the question I ask; Why is the moon looking like a big glowing dot in my photos?

It's because it's reflecting the light from the sun. The sun is the most powerful lights source we know, even at 18% and reflecting off another surface, it's still pretty bright. You have to treat shooting the moon like shooting the sun, kind of. To minimize the light you have to stop down you f-stop and run your shutter fairly fast. Also you don't need to up your ISO since doing so will let more light is being capture by the film or in most cases nowadays, a digital sensor. Just keep it around 100 or 200 ISO. You don't even need a tripod since the shutter speed is fast enough to be hand held.

I tried it with the advice given to me and it worked out pretty good.


I totally can't remember any of the shots above shooting info, such as shutter speed and aperture but I shot the moon again just a few hours ago and here is the data.

D300
Manual exposure
Tamron 70-200 f/2.8 @ 200mm
ISO 200
f/8
Shutter speed -1/200
Shot around 1:30am




I was standing in zero level at the airport, I should have actually went to the top of the parking garage which would have gotten me closer to the subject. I keep the aperture at f/8 since most lenses sweet spots for focusing is at f/8 - f/11. Also since your not getting any other background in the shoot it didn't make a difference to control your DOF. Just keep the aperture there and adjust the shutter speed accordingly. Only thing I did in post was crop the image.

I took only 2 shots and the photo above is the second of the 2. I would have taken more shot but I was on my way home from work and didn't want to dwell in the middle of the road.

I hope this was helpful. Give it a try. Practice makes perfect.

Till next time. PEACE!!

All images can still be seen on my Flickr account and don't forget to check out my website for all your photography needs. LordSpam.com