[jackster12]

Hey there... I've really enjoyed being on this "moon" thread and have learned a lot. I spend a lot of this time of year in Europe, which happens to coincide with a lot of cloudy nights... and this year, some bitter cold... but I can't wait to get out there and take a few more moon shots with what I've learned.

That said, I did get some good ones on New Year's Eve. I posted them elsewhere in this thread. Since then, I've learned a few more things. And some, I think, might be interesting to what you guys are talking about in the last few posts here.

One is that... you want to take your moon photos with the IS turned off.

Reason: You'll be shooting it from a tripod. Tripod shots don't need IS and the IS can even get confused by the tripod setup (unless your camera has a feature to detect that it's on a tripod, in which case it turns off the IS for you).

The other thing that makes the moon shot elusive -- or did for me -- is that it seems so natural, given that it's a shot at night and on a tripod, to use a slow shutter speed. Instead, you want a relatively fast one -- around 1/250 or so.

Reason: The moon is moving. And it's also a very bright point in a very dark sky. With the shutter open too long, that's why you'll get the very white blur instead of crater detail.

Last three: You want to have your focal length as long as your lens will extend. It looks like here that 200mm is about the minimum and that 300mm and higher can produce some really nice shots. And combined with that you want your f-stop very small... which of course, is to say, a high number... f11 at least... but f16 seems common to a lot of the really nice shots. Plus, a low ISO so you can get the detail -- again something that might be counterintuitive to such a dimly lit shot.

So...
Fast exposure, not slow (1/250 or faster)
Tripod with no IS
Fullest focal length available (at least 200m)
Very small f-stop (f16 or so)
Low ISO (100-200)

Does that seem right to the seasoned moon shooters out there? I'm trying to pull from what I've seen in the posts with (in my opinion) the very best looking moon shots.

What you'll get, when you've done it right, is still a lot of pitch black sky with a very small moon in the actual shot... but a very pleasing result when you pop into photo processing software like Photoshop or Lightroom or Aperture for zooming in and cropping.