The main thing to keep in mind when photographing the moon is that the proper exposure is ideally determined by considering the light illuminating the moon. What is illuminating it? The sun! And if you think about it, on the surface of the moon, it is actually DAYTIME there. So if you have your camera set to an exposure (aperture, shutter speed, ISO) that would be appropriate for a daytime shot here on Earth, it should work fine when photographing the moon which is indeed also in the sunlight.
So, in this large closeup shot of the moon, we see the craters clearly visible. To get a shot like this, I used these settings:
Manual Exposure Mode
ISO: 100
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/400
Using a Canon EOS 6D and a Canon 100-400mm L IS Mark II zoomed to 400mm
Shot with a tripod but could have been shot handheld
That large image is just a cropped version of the full image captured in camera (see below):
Note that the exposure settings are comparable to shots taken in daytime scenes here on Earth. You don't need long time exposures. You don't really even need a tripod. The only advantage with a tripod is that you can keep the camera stable and when it comes to squeezing out a little extra sharpness in the shot, that extra stability might help. This shot benefited from the use of a high quality telephoto lens at 400mm. The higher your lens focal length, the larger the moon will appear and you'll see more details in the craters.
If you are trying to photograph the moon at night, you could start with these similar settings as a starting point, in Manual Exposure Mode, and then if the moon turns out to be too dark, shift to a slower shutter speed. If the moon appears to be too bright, simply shift to a faster shutter speed.
Photographing Scenes Illuminated BY the Moon
What about nighttime shots where there are elements in the foreground that are illuminated by the moon? Well, now we have a bit of a problem. Those areas in the foreground here on Earth are in the dark of night with their only illumination being the light reflecting off of the moon, onto the Earth.
An exposure setting chosen in the same way we did above will only be useful in photographing the moon and its craters but all of the elements in the dark foreground will be lost in blackness. So, you'll have to shoot with an exposure where the foreground begins to lighten up (by quite a bit).
Check out this example, and note my exposures settings for this shot are:
Manual Exposure Mode
ISO: 100
Aperture: f/14
Shutter Speed: 30 seconds (note the MUCH slower shutter speed!)
Using a Canon EOS 6D and a Canon 24-104 L IS lens zoomed to 47mm
On tripod
I am using the same ISO and my aperture is bumped up a bit higher to increase the depth of field but the shutter speed is drastically longer than in the first image. Now I am shooting at a full 30 second exposure in order to pick up enough light to capture the reflections in the water and illumination of the rest of the sky and clouds and trees. With an exposure setting like that, you can't possibly ALSO have the moon crater details appear. The two exposures are just too dramatically different. In this case, the moon is just a bright white dot, but at least we can see the clouds and sky and lake reflections.
Photographing Daylight Scenes Containing the Moon
This scenario is easy enough. If you are photographing the moon in the daytime, the exposure that is right for the daylight scene is going to be pretty close to right for exposing the craters on the moon! You could shoot in most any exposure mode and get it right.
In this particular example, the moon and foreground are both illuminated by the same light source, the sun.
In this shot, the exposure settings were:
ISO: 250
Aperture: f/6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/640
Using a Canon EOS 6D and a Canon 100-400mm L IS Mark II zoomed to 400mm
Handheld
Image Sharpness
One last thing to consider is always something to keep in mind in ALL of your photography. Do all that you can to get good image sharpness. Just to summarize these points, here's a list:
Focus - Make sure you have the shot accurately focused. Get to know all the focus modes in your camera to achieve the best results.
Depth of Field - You can control the depth of field by your choice of aperture. The higher the f/number, the deeper the depth of field, making more of the image sharp.
Don't shoot with your aperture wide open - Stopping down your lens a bit will often result in sharper images. This is for a different reason than the depth of field consideration.
Shutter Speed - Especially if you are shooting handheld, make sure your shutter speed is fast enough to freeze any motion blur introduced through vibrations from your hand-holding. A general approximate rule is to keep the shutter speed at least equal to 1 / focal-length (so at 400mm, shoot at least at 1/400th second). If you have a cropped sensor (not full frame) then you might want to take into account the crop factor when considering the focal length.
Image Stabilizer / Vibration Reduction - If your camera or lens has this capability make SURE you are using it when you are shooting hand-held shots!! When you are shooting with a tripod, make sure you turn OFF this feature. Otherwise when shooting on a tripod it can sometimes cause problems!
Lens Quality Matters - If you are using a long telephoto lens, you'll of course get sharper shots if you use a higher quality lens. They can be quite expensive though. One possibility is to RENT one if it otherwise just doesn't fit in your budget.
One final thought -If you are shooting with a DSLR on a tripod using a powerful telephoto lens, AND if your shutter speeds are moderately slow, you could encounter some image softness due to vibrations caused by the DSLR's mirror flipping up and down. You could eliminate this vibration by turning on Mirror Lockup Mode (Canon) or Mirror Up Mode (Nikon). Check your manual for details.
Have fun photographing the moon!
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