Photographing the moon presents us with a series of challenges the casual photographer might not be aware of at first sight. For a start you will need a lens with a telephoto lens with a seriously long focal length. Alternatively, take the longest focal length in your arsenal of lenses and use an Extender ring, thereby extending a lenses focal length by a factor. relative to the specifications of the Extender. However, all of this will still leave you with one main obstacle. How do you accurately measure the moon’s light intensity?

The easiest and most reliable method is to set your camera’s light-meter to spot metering. Next set your camera to auto exposure bracketing (AEB). Now aim the centre of your lens at the moon, so it covers the centre of your viewfinder and with that also the spot-meter. Next use your automatic exposure lock button to lock and fix the light-meter’s spot reading. Now you can freely position the moon in your viewfinder prior to pressing the exposure button. If the moon is shining very bright you shouldn’t even need a tripod with which to take pictures of earth’s natural satellite, although a tripod can of course never harm.

Happy snapping!