Moon over Miami

I was surprised at my photo. I was using a 70-300mm lens hand-held at

6PM. I didn't expect to see this much detail under the circumstances.

Comments???

Hi Marvin,

 You did well for a hand held shot. However , there are several things that you can do to greatly improve future lunar images shot at 300mm:

 1] Reduce your ISO to 400 or less. this will improve the outcome.

2] Open your lens to maximum aperture, like F/5.6 or whatever it is .

3] The increase in light will allow you to get a sharper image due to the definition that improves with larger apertures and the shorter exposure will assure that you capture the finer details.

For this phase of the moon, under clear sky, at F/5.6, ISO 400, the exposure would be 1/1000 second. At ISO 200, 1/500 second, which is still faster than you used.

Now, your processing exhibits much noise and you over sharpened the moon because of the unnatural bright edge around the moon's limb.

I corrected these errors by my processing methods.

I have only been shooting the moon for 50 years now. I invite you to see my portfolio, as there are several lunar images posted.

Best Regards,  Mike