This is the next installment in my series of Quick Tips for photographers.

It seems that every photographer wants to have a great image of the moon in their collection. Why? Because it’s there! And because it’s cool!

Most people that set out to shoot the moon expect that it will be hard to do, that you will need to use long exposures, and maybe even a tripod. In short, they expect to have to shoot it like any other night time shot. Using a tripod is always a great idea if you want to make really sharp images, but for the moon it’s not strictly required. In fact, shooting the moon is more like a daytime shot rather than a night time shot.

Photographing the Moon

Although it may be counter-intuitive, the moon is actually very bright. We can only see the moon because it reflects the light of the sun. That means that the Sunny 16 Rule is actually a great starting point to make images of the moon.

The moon is not quite as bright as a sunny day, so you will probably want to add at least 1 stop of light to the exposure that you calculated using the Sunny 16 Rule to get it just right. So instead of 1/ISO at f/16, you might try f/11 instead.

Modified Sunny 16 Rule for Shooting the Moon:
Aperture = f/11
Shutter = 1/ISO

An equivalent exposure that I like to use for shooting the moon is:
f/8 @ ISO 200 and 1/400th of a second

I like these settings because ISO 200 provides a nice clean (noise-free) images for most modern cameras, and 1/400th is easily hand-holdable unless you are using very long lenses.

NOTE – if you want to zoom in tight on the moon then you will need to use an extremely long lens. In that case you will absolutely want to use an equivalent exposure that includes a very fast shutter speed.

For example, I occasionally use my 400mm lens with a 2x teleconverter to get an equivalent focal length of 800mm. In that case I want to ensure that I get at least 1/1000th of a second to get tack sharp images. To do so I will typically open up the aperture to f/5.6 and also increase my ISO to 400. Doing so allows me to use a shutter speed as fast as 1/1600th of a second.

An equivalent exposure for shooting the moon with long lenses:
f/5.6 @ ISO 400 and 1/1600th of a second

As in all exposure decisions you will want to salt to taste depending on your particular equipment and environment…

A final word on shooting the moon:

Most people that make images of the moon do so when the moon is full. That’s actually the most boring time to shoot the moon, because the entire moon is lit up and it ends up coming out flat and boring. The most interesting images of the moon are taken when only part of it is lit, which is about 1 week before or after the full moon. In this situation the moon is only partially lit which makes the texture from the craters on its surface really pop because the shadows behind them are visible.

This trick is also true for many other forms of photography.

If you want your subject to look interesting, only light part of it!

This is the next installment in my series of Quick Tips for photographers. This one is an oldie but a goodie…

Sometimes your camera will be confused by the lighting conditions around it. In those cases it’s always a good idea to have a feeling for a good starting point for what the correct exposure settings to use will be.

Way back in the olden days (before histograms and light meters were built into the camera), photographers had to do this in their heads, and they had to do it all the time. They developed lots of rules of thumb to help. Here’s one that you can used to determine the correct exposure on a bright sunny day.

The Sunny 16 Rule

On a bright sunny day, if you set your aperture (or F-stop) to f/16, then the shutter speed required to get a good exposure will simply be 1 / ISO.

Some modifiers for this rule:

• If you are at a white sandy beach or shooting in snow then you may need to stop down by 1 stop to cut glare and reflections.
• If your background is darker or there are important areas of the scene in the shade then you may need to open up by 1 stop to fill in the shadows.
• You may have to “salt to taste” to get an exposure that matches your creative expectation!

NOTE – If you need a refresher on Aperture, F-stop, Stop Down, or Open Up, then check out my earlier post on Apertures and F-stops.

For the Advanced Class

f/16 at 1/ISO should be considered to be your starting point, and you can always add salt to taste if you want to change the look of the image (Tip – use the histogram on your LCD to check your exposure). You can also use that exposure information to calculate a whole series of equivalent exposures depending on the creative decisions you want to make.

For example, if you want to blur the background then you might want to use f/2.8 instead of f/16. In this case you simply need to figure out how many full stops brighter f/2.8 is than f/16, and then take away that much light be increasing the shutter speed or decreasing the ISO.

Every time you move either the Aperture, the Shutter, or the ISO from one of the standard settings in the table above to the adjacent setting to the left of it, you are “Stopping Down” your exposure by 1 full stop, which means you will use half the light of the previous setting. As you move to the right you “Open Up” by 1 full stop, which means you will get twice as much light. If you Stop Down the aperture by one stop, then you must Open Up the Shutter or the ISO by one stop in order to maintain the equivalent exposure.

A practical example: Moving from f/16 to f/2.8 is 5 full stops more light. To achieve an equivalent exposure you would have to take away 5 stops. You could do that by Stopping Down the ISO or the Shutter. Changing the ISO from 3200 down to 100, or increasing the Shutter Speed from 1/4 sec up to 1/125th sec are equivalent moves.

NOTE – Modern cameras allow many more choices for Aperture, Shutter, and ISO. They generally allow adjustments in half, third, or even quarter stops. It is very important that you understand how much you have to change to affect your exposure by a full stop! And as always, practice makes perfect!