On April 8th ther was a Super pink moon. A Super moon looks bigger than a usual full moon. We see it larger because it is at its closest point to Earth.
I have always wanted to try and capture a really good photograph of the moon, however I had never really had the time or patience to try and achieve it. At this time, with the whole country on lockdown due to the coronavirus I thought I would try and push myself seeing I had the time.
As we are in lockdown I was restricted to setting up my camera in my back garden. It would’ve been nice to perhaps find a place to photograph the moon with a house or some chimneys within the frame. This would’ve given perspective to the photograph and given a greater sense of the size of the moon.
I decided to change my camera lens to a 55-200mm lens and mounted it on a tripod to keep the camera steady. Also, as the subject was very slow moving, I could set the frame and not worry about that.
At first, I had set my camera to ISO-100, F/11, SS-1sec. As the moon was so far away I was having trouble focusing. Automatic focusing wasn’t really working because of the distance, so I tried my best at Manual focusing.
I had never tried to photograph the moon. My initial thoughts were that I would be using longer shutter speeds. It took me a while to work out, that that was not correct.
However using the longer shutter speeds and upping the ISO I managed to capture some quite nice shots of the passing clouds. The moon, which is my focus point, is still over exposed.
Below are a couple of my better cloud and moon shots.
ISO- 200, F-Stop 11, SS- 2secs
ISO- 800, F-Stop 11, SS- 1.6secs
This night, the moon was shining so bright. Through the clouds you could see a ring around the moon. I was really trying to capture that in this image below.
ISO- 1600, F-Stop 8, SS- 1/5sec
This image below, I was getting there. You immediately go for a slower Shutter Speed for night time shots. However I realised that I needed to speed up my Shutter Speed, as I was always over exposing the moon.
ISO- 800, F-Stop 8, SS- 0.77sec
Finally I got closer to capturing exactly what I was seeing in the sky! With the naked eye, I could see all the craters on the moon in this clear night sky. It took a while but I got there! Yay! I would have loved the moon to be bigger within my frame but this was the closest I could zoom into with my lens.
ISO- 6400, F/Stop 25, SS- 1/2000sec
After I packed up and went inside, it was gone 12:30 am. I was lying in bed thinking I want to try and get that same picture on a lower ISO, so it wouldn’t be so grainy when I enlarge the image. So I decided to go back outside and set up again, but I had missed my opportunity as the clouds were thick and passing over the moon. Something to think about next time I try and photograph the moon!
My Photography Journey 
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