Getting Started with Moon Photography

Astrophotography  •  Photography Tips

Astrophotography is indeed a really interesting genre of photography. Whether you’re a professional or a beginner, good astrophotos will truly leave you mesmerized. And if you’re a beginner photographer, what better way to start photographing celestial bodies than with the moon. It’s relatively close, appears pretty big, and is quite bright. These characteristics make photographing the moon relatively easy to start out, compared with shooting other far off celestial objects in space. In today’s video, photographer Paul Farris explains how you can get started with moon photography:

As a beginner photographer, taking a photo of the moon can be tricky. This is especially so if you are using one of the auto modes. With no control over the camera settings in auto mode, the image of the moon can come out like a white bulb with no details. Where’s the fun in that? It thus becomes necessary to get out of auto mode and control your camera to take a proper moon photograph.

Besides exposure, another common problem that beginners face in moon photography is sharpness. It’s most likely because of camera shake or improper focus. Farris explains how you can improve sharpness by using various focusing techniques, a tripod, and a remote release/self-timer to overcome these challenges easily.

Other than camera settings, gear does matter a bit as well. For the lens, you will need something that has a long focal length. In this case, the longer the better. On a crop sensor body, you can do away with something like a 300mm lens. And don’t forget a tripod. When using a long lens, even a little bit of shake gets magnified leading to blurry images. Also, you don’t want to be carrying that heavy telephoto lens for hours, do you?

Moon photo captured by Mike Petrucci

If you’ve been facing problems while photographing the moon, Farris’s tips will surely help you out a lot. Be sure to watch the video in full to hear all the moon photography tips. And let us know if you have any other tricks for photographing the moon.