Taking pictures of the moon is harder than most people think until they actually try it. All too often, what looks spectacular in real life ends up as a fuzzy, overexposed blob with no detail surrounded by a pitch-black night sky. So, what can you do to make sure that you take a good picture of the moon?
Remember that it’s daytime up there.
It’s common to assume that you need to use a long exposure when shooting the moon because it’s night down here and that just isn’t true! The portion of the moon you can see at night, whether it’s a full moon or a crescent, is experiencing daytime and you need to adjust your settings to match that.
With your camera’s meter set to ISO 400, try an exposure of f/8 @ 1/125 of a second. As is often the case, you’ll need to bracket to get the best exposure. At least this gives you a place to start. And remember, the longer the focal length of your lens, the faster the moon will appear to move in your viewfinder! Using a 1,000mm lens the moon moves almost its own diameter every seven seconds!