Current Moon Phase

Thinking about Taking pictures of the moon ??!!

Shooting the Moon

Almost every photographer at one time or another has taken a shot of the moon, either as the subject of the photo, or in the background of a photo. Taking the photo of a moon at night cab be more technically challenging that one thinks.

Did you know that the moon is 33,000 times brighter than the bright star Sirius? Inexperienced amateurs often believe that because they are taking a picture of the moon at night, they must use a long exposure, only to find that their result is a huge blob of glaring light. In fact, a full moon may only require a shutter speed of 1/250 second at ISO100. A waning or waxing moon will require slightly longer exposures because the quarter moon is only 1/10th as bright as a full moon.

The challenge in shooting the moon is revealing any sort of detail of the surface. The most intriguing features of the moon are its dark lava plains ("Mare") and the plethora of craters and mountains that cover its surface. While the full moon is most enchanting to the eye and soul while full, photographically-speaking it is the most boring! When the moon is full or near full, the surface reflectivity is at it highest and a lot of the fine details are lost. Only the brightest craters and darkest of mare will show up in your photos.

So what do you need to take really interesting, details photos of the moon?

Its possible to just go outside, put your camera on the "green box", point your 200mm lens at the moon and push the shutter release. But are you getting the most out of your camera? Most likely not. With a little more preparation you can really improve the quality of your moon photos.

The Requirements

Tripod
Remote shutter release
Mirror Lock-up
Patience

The most important piece of equipment is the tripod. Without this, you are very likely to take a blurry photo, regardless of the shutter speed and ISO used. The second most important piece of equipment is a remote shutter release. This can be either the corded or Infrared type. The less you have your hands on your camera while taking a photo, the less change of vibration you have. Another way to eliminate any vibration is to use a feature that is called "Mirror Lock-Up" or MLU for short. MLU is a feature found in the XT but requires the modified firmware for the 300D. What MLU does is locks up the mirror, waits a predefined number of seconds, then opens and closes the shutter. A subtle source of in-camera vibration is the "mirror slap" cause by the movement of the mirror during each shot taken. (The mirror must move out of the way of the shutter).

If you don't have a shutter release mechanism, MLU is your next best way to eliminate any sort of vibration. At high magnifications with a zoom lens, even the most minute vibrations can cause your image to blur and lose sharpness.

And thirdly, patience. With various lens, f-stop and ISO combinations possible, there is no one magic formula or camera setting that will work for all, especially considering how dynamic the moon can be. However, with a little patience you can quickly fine tune your settings to get a great photo of the moon.

Be aware of the phases of the moon

As I mentioned before, The full moon, while inspiring, is the least detailed of all the moons phases. Taking a photo any time before or after the full phase can yield subtle and exquisite detail you can't see with your naked eye. These are the details you want to bring out in your photo. But why is this? Why is a quarter moon more interesting than the full moon?

Its all about the sun angle. When the moon is full, the sun is essentially behind the earth, our vantage point. Light from the sun is illuminating features on the moon evenly and the light is reflecting right back towards us and the light source, so everything appears washed out and flat. With a non-full moon, especially a quarter moon or less, the sun angle is 90 degrees or more with respect to earth, so we see both shadows and highlights of features. Instead of flatly lit craters, we see their rims and shadows, mountains cast shadows and so on. A completely different landscape than a full moon.

The challenge now is that unlike the full moon, the surface of the moon now has a gradient of brightness. The sun-lit side is still extremely bright, yet there are details to be revealed along the "terminator", that line where light meets dark. Its takes some exposure experimentation to get just the right mix of the two to not blow out the lit side and overpower the details along the terminator.