Shooting the Moon!

Last night we had a fairly darn glorious full moon, so I stepped out front, set up my gear and shot it (shown above--click for larger version). Shooting the moon, and getting good detail, is actually simple, but most folks get the shot on the left---the totally blown out, no detail moon. That's because they didn't use the "magic bullet;" two simple settings that work perfectly for shooting the moon. I included this trick in my new book "The Digital Photography Book" and I also included how to do a digital double-exposure in Photoshop to add the moon to any night time sky. Anyway, here's the simple steps (from the book):

(1) Use as long a telephoto lens as you've got (at least 200mm). I used a 200mm telephoto lens, but I added a 1.4 teleconverter last night so it was effectively almost a 300mm.
(2) Use a tripod. It's a must.
(3) The big trick is to then switch to manual mode, and use these exact settings: set your aperture to f/11, set your shutter speed to 1/250 of a second, aim and shoot. It's that easy, and that's exactly what I did to get the shot you see above, taken last night around 9:30 pm.

By the way, Amazon.com is selling the book for only $11.99. Cheap!.