I have shot a lot of moon shots with a big lens but I decided to try seeing what I could do with a "run of the mill" zoom and hand held..
Camera D90, lens 18-250mm sigma (image stabilized lens) hand held.
ISO 200
F11, 1/180 sec. at 250mm
I try to shoot the moon several stops
UNDER exposed. Then I use increase contrast and some levels to bring the exposure back up. Doing this drives the background to sold black and gives more definition to the craters. If it looks good on your camera monitor, it's too bright!
I sharpen at about 1 pixel radius and 50-100% in PS elements 5, usually desaturate the color and that's about it.
This is a
MANUAL exposure and
MANUAL focus
ONLY proposition. I shoot about 20 shots in manual focus refocusing between
EVERY shot. Out of 20 shots manually focused one will simply be better than all the others. I've never gotten what I thought was a good shot using auto focus on the moon.
Here's the shot from the 250mm hand held. Click image for a larger version
When I get serious, I use an old manual focus
600mm and a 2x TC for some really spectacular shots. Same as above but using a tripod and timer for the shutter release. More lens you have the steadier you need to keep the shot!
Click image for the larger version:
My moon gallery out
HERE
Your moons are always a lot of fun to add to other photos..
Go out there and give it a try and post your results!