Digital Full Moon Photography
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The moon isn’t as easy to photograph as you might like, even with today’s better cameras.
Taking a digital photograph of the full moon means turning off the auto-exposure on your camera for a start, because the camera gets fooled by the relatively bright moon with the background of a dark sky. And that’s before we get into the complications of any light pollution from nearby civilization.
You’re also going to need a tripod to rest your camera on as we’re talking too long an exposure to be able to hold the camera steady by hand.
Auto focus is the other thing that gets fooled by taking photographs of the full moon.
The good news is that, unlike when we used old fashioned film cameras, you don’t have to wait for ages to find out whether or not your shot has come out correctly. So you can afford to experiment. It pays to make a careful note of the settings you’ve used so that you can compensate for any errors if you need to retake your digital full moon photograph.
These are some things to bear in mind when you’re taking your shots:
No matter how tempting, don’t make your exposure too long. Keep it to an absolute maximum of one fifteenth of a second. Any more than this exposure and you’ll start to experience blurring of the moon as it’s moved a mile during that time.
If your camera supports it, bracket your exposure so that you stand a better chance of getting the shot you want.
Go for the following settings to stand the best chance of getting your full moon photo just right:
- Set your camera to full manual exposure.
- Manually focus your lens to infinity.
- If possible, use a polarizing filter.
- If you have the option, use an infra-red remote to trigger your shot as this ensures you won’t get any extra camera shake.
- Set your camera to record the maximum number of pixels possible.
- Make sure your memory card can cope, especially if you’re bracketing your shots.
- Use a sturdy tripod that allows you to adjust in both vertical and horizontal directions.
- Fill the frame with the moon as much as you can, without cutting off the edges of course!
