Super Moon Photography

Photographing the Moon

By Jenifer Cady

The Super Moon was out the other night (Sept. 8, 2014) and it was so bright it cast moon shadows! I went outside and decided to photograph it. The first couple of shots I took, the moon came out as an overexposed white blurry dot.

The tendency is that we want to over expose the image because it’s night and it’s dark outside. Logic says, dark outside, need more exposure. However, because the moon was Super Moon, meaning it was incredibly bright, I decided to give it less exposure. The black night was going to be black

either way. I wasn’t exposing for anything else, just the moon. So when I exposed for the bright light of the moon, meaning a very short exposure, I was able to capture all the texture and nuances of the moon’s surface. Luckily for this shot, it was a clear night.

I used my hand held Canon Rebel XSi with a 55mm - 250 mm telephoto lens. Once I got the correct exposure, I enlarged the image and could see the beautiful patterns and dimensions of the moon.

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