Clicking the 'Blood Moon'

It is your last chance to catch total Lunar eclipse this year, although in India stargazers will only be able to witness its last stage. The eclipse of the moon has begun and will end around 7 pm today, and there is still time to take out your cameras a capture the Earth's shadow as it gives a coppery hue to the moon.

I have, with my DSLR done some experiments in capturing the moon and here are a few pointers that I can suggest that will help you photograph the moon tonight or even other wise. Because, eclipse or not, the moon will remain as spectacular and the epitome of love and beauty every night.

How to photograph moon

Now it is a bit tricky to click the best possible pictures of the moon. However, following these easy seven steps may make it easier for you to get that perfect shot...

1. Choose the right lens

Even when the moon looks pretty close from the naked eyes, it will look nothing more than a white dot in the picture clicked by a normal lens (say 18-55mm). First thing you need is a powerful zoom lens instead of this wide lens. The ideal would be 200+ telephoto lens. You can get a good detailed picture of the moon at 300 mm, but the longer the lens, the better.

2. Keep it stable

It is impossible to click a sharp picture of the moon, keeping the camera in hand. You definitely need a tripod to keep the camera steady. Find a suitable resting place for the tripod and fix your camera on it. Just in case you're not carrying your tripod with you, rest your camera on a rock, car, chair or any steady place to keep it stable. To make sure that there is no shakiness, you need to either use the remote trigger or use the camera timer.

3. Manual mode

It may be easier for you to get good pictures while keeping your camera on auto mode or other fixed modes. But, here you need to turn it to the full manual mode and set the shutter speed, aperture and ISO to the required values. Ideally you should use spot metering on your camera and also do manual focus.

4. The 'f' number

The first thing that may come to your mind would be to keep the f-number low to get more light. That is exactly what you shouldn't be doing. The moon itself is too bright and keeping the low f-number will make it look like a bulb. You should ideally keep the f-number between f11 to f14.

5. Shutter speed

Again you may want to use the slow shutter speed to get brighter picture. But once again, you should be doing opposite of that. The ideal shutter speed for clicking moon is between 1/125 to 1/250. It also depends on your ISO value.

6. Right ISO

The more you increase the ISO value, the more you loose the quality of the image. It is advisable to fix ISO value between 100 to 400.

7. Create more pictures

Be creative with your shots, experiment with different combinations of ISO, aperture and shutter speed. Try and get more shots with some interesting foregrounds and not just the moon. Make interesting compositions. Use creative effects in the pictures on your computer.

While the total eclipse will not be visible from India, it is a full moon night- So click away!