Nor for semi-professionals!

There is a great learning curve in photography, especially with today's computer cameras! However, the learning curve in moon photography is much greater. I must have snapped 30 shots tonight experimenting with settings I had guessed at or speculated on, plus those suggested on the Internet. Finally, I took a few passable shots!

The key to shooting something 10 times brighter than a star is a fast shutter speed, even though it's dark out, and the proper ISO. I think my few successes came in with these settings: Nikon D7000 Exposure 0.006 sec (1/180) Aperture f/5.6 Focal Length 300 mm ISO Speed 100.

If you just point and shoot with your standard pocket camera the shot will more than likely turn our either very dark, or with a bright hot spot where the moon should have been. That's basically how past shots of the moon for me have been. I forgot that the moon is very bright and you have to shoot to that brightness and for the fact that the moon is constantly moving.

This means you must use a tripod, and you should use a remote shutter release, which I didn't tonight, and you must bracket your shots until you hit upon the proper setting.

I used a 300mm lens, and was still not getting the closeups I wanted. Thanks to Photoshop I was able to crop and enlarge my results.

And, thank goodness for digital photography! I hate to think of the film I would have wasted 20 years ago!

Okay, kingstonpen...that's my first try. How'd I do?!

There are a few more on my FLICKR site.