How to get a proper shot of the moon!

The moon is a very interesting and hard subject to get a proper picture of because it is a very bright object and being far away that you need a 600mm+ lens to get really close!

Also being so bright you need to know how to expose correcly otherwise you dont get the details of the craters to show on the picture!

There is several ways of getting a well exposed moon shot:

- Using ND filters to stop down the moons intense light, the downside is that the moon has a habit of being a moving target which can affect your ability to get a sharp photo when using a lower shutterspeed!

- Set you cameras exposure compensation between -2 to -5 (if you camera support more then 2 steps).

- Set your camera to manual mode and find a shutterspeed that works using trial and error (I find around 1/100 to 1/200 works great with f 4.0 and iso 200).

Here is how i created this photo:

Here is the two photos i used in order to capture both the detail of the moon and the clouds:

photo no. 1

Properly exposed photo that shows the craters clearly.

photo no 2

Notice how bright the moon is when it shows up as a blob of light as default!

1. I edited the raw files using Adobe camera raw and then loaded them in photoshop cs5.

2. I then dragged the photo with the details of the moon in the photo with the details of the sky.

3. Using layers i set the opacity of the detailed moon shot to 40% so that i could align both photos and then adjusted the settings i needed to in order to get the effect i was looking for.

4. I then saved the final images as a psd and loaded the file in Lightroom and did some additional editing.

5. The final result!

The end result is great and well worth the effort!

One last thing!

There is another way of getting really close up shots of the moon:

- Mount your camera on a telescope.

Unfortunately i dont own a telescope myself to try out but if you follow

Leonardo Moran Cahusac on Facebook ha can tell you more about his experiences:

http://www.facebook.com/leonardo.morancahusac

Do you love your own photos?

I received a email where i was asked whats my secret for getting so many comments on Flickr?

My answer was very simple: "Love your own photos, look at other people photos and most importantly know the basics of how shutterspeed, aperture and iso works!"

He emailed me back saying: "Thanks for the advice but how is that going to make me more popular on Flickr?"

I responded back: "If you love your own photos then it doesn't matter if you get allot of comments on Flickr because at the end of the day there is only one person who knows if your photos are great and that is you!"

I did add that there are positive aspects of being popular on Flickr but that is a secondary goal!

He responded back by saying: "What is wrong with you assholes that cant even give me a straight answer!"

I didn't hear from him again so hopefully he understood what i was talking about.

...........................................

I do admit that i was an asshole by not explaining that if you comment on other peoples photos then you get comments back, but to be honest i have grown tired of the constant race of getting allot of comments and faves on Flickr because at the end of the day it doesn't matter to me as much as it used too!

What matters is how i feel about my photos, how being creative helps me to be feel more confident of myself so that i can be successful with my life.

As for all of you who visit, comment and press the favorite button on my photos, i thank everyone of you very much for your support by being there for me :)

Do you love your own photos?

How do you value a comment or a favorite?