MISSION BRIEFING: I recently had the desire to photograph the moon. I’ve done so in the past with OK results, but this time I was hoping to get a bigger, more detail shot of the surface. So I rented a lens with a maximum zoom of 500mm, hoping that would be enough. I knew I wanted a shot of a waxing or waning moon to get some crater detail as the sunlight raked the surface at an angle to the Earth. (In my opinion, full moon shots lack that contrasting light and shadow that make the craters stand out.) Consulting the photography app PhotoPills, I selected a week where there would be a waxing crescent moon. I then arranged for the lens rental and hoped for clear weather. After a quick Google search, I selected a minimum shutter speed to ensure the movement of the moon wouldn’t result in a blurred image, and I headed out to the back yard to take my shot.
Here’s what I got:
Waxing Crescent Over Colorado | Jan 2020
SHOT DETAILS:
Camera: Nikon Z6 (tripod mounted)
Lens: Nikon 200-500mm f/5.6
Settings: 1/125s @ 500mm, f/8, ISO 400, Auto white balance
Editing: Adobe Lightroom
ASSESSMENT: The 500mm focal length was certainly better than the longest lens I own (200mm). However, it still didn’t have enough reach for the results I was hoping for. The final shot is fine, but I had to crop it significantly to get the resulting image, and so it lacks the detail I had hoped it might have.
CONCLUSION: If/when I try again, I will try a lens of at least 750mm or use a teleconverter to achieve the desired results. Using a teleconverter will mean a loss of a stop or two of light, which will require a higher ISO setting to compensate for the lost light, yielding a noisier, grainier image. So we’ll see. But I really liked the waxing crescent phase, which provided some nice pop to the craters.
BOTTOM LINE: Sometimes gear really does matter.