A lot of photographers have certain photos in mind when they start doing photography. Most of a photographer’s bucket list just requires a combination of luck and determination. If they want to take a photo of a particular landscape then it involves finding the right location and then being lucky enough to have the right weather. Similarly for nature photography, it’s enough to be in the right place at the right time with a bit of luck. One subject though that requires a bit more than just luck is the moon. For good shots of the moon you need the right camera, the right lens, and a little bit of advanced technique in editing the final image.
You’ll probably want an image that you can print, or at least show off online. So it’ll have to be a relatively hi-res image, for our purposes we’re going to aim for 1920 x 1080 (the definition of HD on TVs and monitors). There are a couple of ways you can get a good hi-res image of the moon, but for the purposes of this guide we’ll assume you want an image that fills at least 2 thirds of the shot from top to bottom or side to side. You want to see the detail, craters and plains. So how to make sure your lens and camera are up for the task?
Well one way is to use a super high-res camera, some cameras have resolutions over 50 MP, so you can take shots with a relatively inexpensive lens and crop right into the image. I’d recommend a camera with at least 24 MP though, which is more than adequate with even a modest telephoto lens. Basically, the higher the MPX the shorter the lens needed. For this guide I’m using a Nikon Z6ii which has a maximum resolution of 24 MP
With a 24 MP camera you will need a lens that can reach 600mm. Even at 600mm the image isn’t big enough to fill the frame, it’s about a quarter of the desired size. This is why we need a sensor with at least 24 MP, at a quarter crop you end up with an image that’s the desired minimum size. For this guide I’ve paired my Nikon z6ii with a Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM Sport and a FTZ II Converter. You could use a telephoto prime lens which would give you a wider aperture, but wide aperture telephoto lenses come at a price. As we’re shooting what is to all intents a static subject we can compensate for a narrower aperture with a longer shutter time without any loss in image quality. If you really wanted a higher resolution image you can also increase the range of the lens by pairing it with a teleconverter. Nikon make both a 1.4x and a 2.0x converter, but be aware that using these does have the effect of adding another f stop to your lens. Again, simply adjust your shutter speed or ISO accordingly.
Once you have your camera and lens it’s highly recommended that you use a tripod. The Sigma 150-600mm Sports lens weighs in at an impressive 2.1 kg which isn’t ideal for handheld shooting. Also, for what we want to do later in the guide you’ll want to fix the camera so it doesn’t move between shots. A good tripod is recommended so you don’t have any wobbly head issues. A remote shutter release is also recommended to eliminate any small movement when triggering the shutter release button.
Now you have your camera setup and ready to take photos of the moon there’s one final tip that seems counterintuitive. You don’t have to wait until it gets dark to take photos of the moon. This is especially true if you’re after photos of the phases of the moon, a half moon or crescent moon is often visible in the later evening sky when the sun still has an hour to set. You can still wait until after the sun has set, but you don’t have to unless you intend to include the darker portion of the moon in your photo. For this guide though we are after a full moon, so we will be waiting for darkness before taking our photos.
The first setting on the camera to turn off is the auto-focusing. You don’t want the camera trying to refocus between shots, but you can still have the camera do the focusing before taking the photo with a simple trick. If your camera has a AF-On button reprogram the camera to only use this button for focusing. Alternatively set the lens to Manual Focus mode. Adjust the camera on the tripod so the moon is in the centre of the frame. You may find it easier to focus manually if you switch the display from the viewfinder to the screen. With the moon in the centre of the frame you can now zoom into the image using the camera’s zoom option and then fine tune the image displayed to optimize the focus.
Next you want to turn off any automatic ISO adjustments. Set the ISO to a fixed 100. This is important as we don’t want the camera adjusting the ISO when we take each image for reasons you’ll see later.
For my purposes I’ve taken 8 photos at different speeds. The slowest shutter speed used was 1/50 and the fastest was 1/1250. With the tripod the different in speed doesn’t matter, what matters is that you have a range of exposures from light to dark. For photos of the moon you don’t actually need 8 exposures, 3 will suffice, but I’m going for the full dynamic range. I actually took several photos at each shutter speed to compensate for any movement of the camera and selected the most central image from each exposure set.
Once you’ve got your photos imported into Lightroom it’s time to combine them. There’s an option to stack your photos to create a HDR photo in the menu options.
You’ll notice the moon is rather small in the resulting stacked photos so first we’ll crop the photo to a better composition.
The unedited HDR photo is also rather dull and monochromatic and not very clear
So we’ll adjust the settings as shown below. You don’t have to use these exact settings yourself, this is entirely a matter of preference. You’ll notice I’ve adjusted the saturation in the photo, this is because while we may not notice it the moon is not a flat grey landscape, but is coloured by the minerals found on it. This just helps to bring out the colour without overwhelming the photo.
With the light and dark parts now more clearly shown this is the result.
