Dark side of the moon

[squirl033]

techniquefor a good moon shot...

shutter - 1/200-1/250. experiment to see what gives the best results. for a full moon on a cloudless night, 1/200 should be a good starting point. this is not, as was suggested somewhere, because the moon moves quickly; relative to you, it's barely moving at all. it's simply because the full moon is a bright object, and like a spotlit stage, you have to meter for the brightness of the subject at hand. as the moon wanes, decrease your shutter speed to 1/100 or 1/125, even down to 1/80 or more for a crescent moon.

aperture f8 or higher is probably preferred, but a little wider won't hurt anything. after all, the moon is 240,000 miles away, and there's no DOF issue; at that distance, the full moon appears to the camera as a flat disk.

use a tripod! most of your problem with the shot you posted seems to be motion blur, which is simply inevitable at 1/125 with a non-stabilized telephotolens. if you have a remote shutter release, use it. otherwise, use the camera's self-timer.

this shot was taken with a Panasonic FZ20 at 12x zoom, 1/200 @ f8. from a tripod. i have several other shots that are better, but i used a teleconverter for those, and this is fairly close to what you should see with your 75-300 lens.

[Aumma45]

Dom, I have no comment to give since LBoy and Squirel have spoken well. I have also profited from what they have said. Looking forward to see your new production. Regards. Jaki.