Moon Photography
I am always looking for images to capture and have been working on my moon photography skills a bit while here in Oklahoma City. There are actually a few challenges in moon photography. The moon is a very bright object so auto exposure doesn’t work. With the rotation of the earth, the moon actually moves pretty fast which requires a higher shutter speed. Because it is still a low light situation, the lowest ISO is desired in order to limit the noise in your image. I have found that shooting in manual at a low ISO with the highest shutter speed possible is the best approach to grab a sharp properly exposed image.
My successful moon shots have all been around f8 1/250 with an ISO of 100. I use a 100-400 Canon f4 L on a tripod.
The phase of the moon is also very important and although one would think that shooting a full moon would be best, this is actually not the case. There are few if any shadows during the full moon and it is actually much more difficult to get a good, dramatic looking image. I have found that shooting at the earlier or later phases of the moon makes for a much better image and will show much more moon detail.
Having the ability to do large crops is also nice to have. a camera such as the Canon 5Dsr with it’s 50MP sensor allows for very tight crops with a 400mm focal length.
