Photographing the Moon

To photograph just the moon by itself, without any objects in the foreground, you will need a long telephoto lens in order to fill as much of the frame as possible. Even with a good telephoto lens setup though, you will most likely be cropping the final image.  Only a telescope would be able to provide enough magnification to fill the entire frame. With your telephoto lens mounted in your camera, secure it on a tripod and point at the moon. Make sure that your tripod is good and stable enough to accommodate and hold your lens and your camera. When it comes to shutter speed, aperture and ISO, here is what I recommend for general use:

1. Camera Mode: Set your camera mode to full Manual Mode.
2. ISO: Set your ISO to 100 if you have a Canon DSLR and to 200 if you have a Nikon DSLR Make sure “Auto ISO” is turned Off. (basically, whatever base ISO you have in your camera). For most other brands, the base ISO is also 100. If you have a point and shoot camera, see if you can find a menu setting to set your ISO to 100.
3. Aperture: Set your aperture to f/11.
4. Shutter Speed: Set your shutter speed to 1/125 on cameras with base ISO 100, and to 1/250 on Nikon DSLR's with base ISO 200.
5. Lens Focus: Set your lens to manual focus (either through a switch on the lens or on the camera) and set your focus to infinity. Be careful while setting the focus to infinity, as some lenses allow focusing beyond infinity. Try setting your lens to the center of the infinity sign, then take a picture and see if it came out sharp by zooming in the rear LCD of the camera.