Close encounters of the Moon
During the full moon on March 19th 2011 the moon was only 221,565 miles (356,575 kilometers) away. The closest it’s been in almost 20 years. It appeared 14 percent bigger and 30% brighter than usual.
A "Super Moon".
How to shoot the moon:
1. Use a good solid Tripod, keep the center column down. Over the distance from you to the moon, any vibration is going to affect your image.
2. Use a long lens, mine is 400mm on a 1.6x crop body = 640mm
3. ISO 100. Although this is at night, the moon is very bright, use your lowest ISO to get the cleanest image.
4. Use RAW, jpg disposes of detail before you've had a chance to optimize it.
5. Set your lens to its sharpest aperature, mine is F8. Check your lens MTF (Modulation Transfer Function [resolution]) at photozone. For example see Test Report - Analysis
6. Set your shutter speed to one stop below getting the blinking overexposed warning. This is 'expose to the right'. In camera, this will look over exposed, but once we post process it, you will get the maximum detail - this is important! see "Expose to the Right"
7. Live View to focus critically at 10x magnification. You would imagine at this distance the lens would be at infinity, but you'll be be surprised.
8. Use the self timer with mirror lockup. You want the camera to be as still as possible at the point of exposure.
9. Post processing
The expose to the right technique maximises detail, but requires you fix the exposure level in Post Processing, do it manually or try the Auto fix.
Increase the contrast via curves adjustment, to darken the 'seas', and brighten the craters.
Tone if desired.
Crop.
Close encounters of the Moon
During the full moon on March 19th 2011 the moon was only 221,565 miles (356,575 kilometers) away. The closest it’s been in almost 20 years. It appeared 14 percent bigger and 30% brighter than usual.
A "Super Moon".
How to shoot the moon:
1. Use a good solid Tripod, keep the center column down. Over the distance from you to the moon, any vibration is going to affect your image.
2. Use a long lens, mine is 400mm on a 1.6x crop body = 640mm
3. ISO 100. Although this is at night, the moon is very bright, use your lowest ISO to get the cleanest image.
4. Use RAW, jpg disposes of detail before you've had a chance to optimize it.
5. Set your lens to its sharpest aperature, mine is F8. Check your lens MTF (Modulation Transfer Function [resolution]) at photozone. For example see Test Report - Analysis
6. Set your shutter speed to one stop below getting the blinking overexposed warning. This is 'expose to the right'. In camera, this will look over exposed, but once we post process it, you will get the maximum detail - this is important! see "Expose to the Right"
7. Live View to focus critically at 10x magnification. You would imagine at this distance the lens would be at infinity, but you'll be be surprised.
8. Use the self timer with mirror lockup. You want the camera to be as still as possible at the point of exposure.
9. Post processing
The expose to the right technique maximises detail, but requires you fix the exposure level in Post Processing, do it manually or try the Auto fix.
Increase the contrast via curves adjustment, to darken the 'seas', and brighten the craters.
Tone if desired.
Crop.