Photographing The Moon.

Photographing the moon can be tricky. Last year I had a go at it and it was a complete disaster with the moon looking like a big bright blurry mass in the sky. After a bit of trial and error. Many times the result is a blurry image or a bright speck on the film. However, getting great moon pictures is simple once you know a few tricks to the subject. Many photographers already have the equipment to successfully take great moon photos. To reliably get good moon photographs you will need: a camera that lets you control shutter speed and aperture, and a zoom capability to about 300mm (this is 10x zoom on some point and shoot type cameras). That’s it, no tripods, no RM5000 lenses, no super-human powers.

Olympus E-620 + 70-300mm Zuiko Lens.

 The first thing you need is a  zoom lens. The moon may look big in the night sky but when your camera takes a photo of it, the moon will only fill a tiny portion of the photo. On a 50mm lens the moon with be nothing more than a dot in your picture. The lens I used in the photo above were taken on a Zuiko 70-300mm lens which was a lot better but to be honest an even longer zoom would have been better.The main problem most people have with moon photography is that they think of the moon as a “night subject”. Because of this they turn their cameras to the night preset or automatically start at a slow shutter speed to increase light. The moon, however, is so bright that the opposite is true. It is basically like taking a photo of an illuminated light bulb in a dark room.
The next thing you 100% need is a tripod(if you wanted to) Keeping the camera still is essential for getting a sharp image, and if your using a long zoom lens camera shake will be an issue as it's the longer the zoom the more camera shake affects the image. The tripod will hold the lens still and allow you to take a sharp image. Also you will need to use either the cameras timer function or a shutter release cable to trigger the camera shutter... otherwise you can jolt the camera while taking the photo and get blurred results.

What f-number/aperture should you use? The first thing that comes to mind is a low f-number i.e. f4.0 or lower to take in more light. This is where I went wrong - the moon is actually very bright in the sky and using a low f-number can completely blow out the moon and make it look more like the sun. The ideal f-number would be somewhere between f11 and f16.
The moon moves. Because the moon rotates around the Earth as the Earth itself is moving, slow shutter speeds will cause blur on your moon photographs. Use the highest possible shutter speed with a relatively small F-Stop to get a good exposure (in this case slightly underexposed) image. With the desired slight underexposure, you should be able to get a fast enough shutter speed to hand-hold your camera. With a 300mm zoom you will need a shutter speed of at least 1/350 for a clear image.Once you have your perfect shot load it onto your computer. Even on a 300mm lens the moon can still take up a relatively small area of your photo. If you got your settings spot on and managed to get a very sharp photo of the moon then you can crop your image and even zoom in a little bit so the moon itself fits better in the finished framing of your photo.

• Use a long zoom lens.
• Always use a tripod and shutter release or timer cable.
• Don't use a low f-number.
• Don't use a slow shutter speed.

When photographing the moon, be sure to record not only the length of time that you exposed your film, but also general weather conditions and what phase the moon was in. This will help you to produce better photos in the future.