Photo of a very red moon at night!

After receiving a text from a friend commenting on how amazing and red the moon looked one night, I took it as a challenge to take a photo as a treat.

Getting the exposure right is definitely a job for manual mode. The light reading will be totally out even with spot metering. You’ll need to experiment to get the right amount of detail. Once you get it right the details of all those craters really shine! This exposure was 1/30 of a second at F5 and ISO 200. The low ISO ensures very little noise and the relative fast shutter speed means very little motion blur at full zoom, even if it is on a tripod which of course this shot was.

For improved stability I’d recommend using mirror lock up if your camera has that feature. This stops any movement of the mirror flipping up causing vibrations. Also if your lens has image stabiliation turn it off. IS works best when the lens is moving around in your hand. When the camera is on a tripod it’s best to turn it off.

With my 70-200 F4 L on full zoom it’s lucky I have a Canon 5D Mark II with 21 megapixels to increase the zoom enough without losing detail. The image above is pretty much full size. Still i’m pleased with the result for web use at least. Until I get myself this gorgeous Canon 800mm 5.6F lens!
As ever your thoughts and comments are welcome. If you’ve taken shots of the moon recently why not share them with us.