PictureCorrect.com: Beginner Workflow for Macro Photography

Whether you accept it or not, we all love macro photographs. I mean, who doesn’t like an intensely detailed bug or a flower on a silky creamy background? The first thing that we do after getting our hands on a DSLR for the first time is to go to our backyard and start taking flower pictures. But in reality, macro photography is much more difficult than it seems to be. I normally shoot landscape and street photography but recently I decided to give macro a try and found it to be much more challenging technically than any other type of photography.

I’m new to macro photography, so I’m not an authority on it. But I’ve been learning a lot, so I decided to write a blog post to keep everything in order so that I can start improving.
Like every picture, a macro has its aesthetic as well as technical aspects. Start with the aesthetic qualities, because they’re easier to learn and don’t require any extra gear.

Aesthetic Qualities

Simplicity

Macro is all about one and only subject. Unlike landscape or street or any other type of photography, it usually doesn’t—and shouldn’t, in my opinion—have an any layers or multiple points of interest. The image should be flat with all the attention leading toward the subject and minimum connection with the background. When I say minimum connection, I mean, aesthetically, the background should not grab the attention of viewers. It should be very simple. We can achieve this by either blurring it or using high contrast compositions.

Details

The ultimate goal of a macro shot is to show the unique, fantasy world that we normally cannot see with our naked eye. So choose your subjects wisely. Don’t select subjects that we’re used to observing in detail normally. Choose subjects and their angles that we are normally unaware of. Try to show the absolute level of detail that even if we look closely with our naked eye, we can’t see. That’s where macro photos actually shine. That’s why a lot of people go toward insects, as we don’t normally observe them so closely. As the saying goes, the devil is in the details. Get extremely close to your subject and try to bring a completely new world to your viewers.

Composition

Just because there are minimal components in macro photography doesn’t make it less worthy to put effort into the composition. In fact, composition is extremely vital for the success of macro photos. Composition rules like the golden ratio, the rule of thirds, diagonals, and leading lines were never so important. It’s very important to create dynamic and fluent compositions or else chances are that even with immense details, the photograph will still fall flat on its face. Utilize all the composition rules to make your macro photos eye-catching.

With all its simplicity, macro photography is not at all simple when it comes to the technical aspects. Below are some of the technicalities to keep in mind while shooting macro photography.

Technical Challenges and Their Solutions

Limited Depth of Field

Normally when we take portraits or stock or street photography, we do everything in our power to create creamy bokeh and shallow depth of field. But when it comes to macro it’s the other way around. We do everything to get a few extra millimeters in focus so that we can capture details properly. Because we’re focusing very closely (normally only a few inches), depth of field is literally in millimeters.

Now, you can do a couple of things. You can move back a little and lose some details but get more focus or you can increase aperture. Both approaches have their own pros and cons. You can only increase aperture to a limit where diffraction won’t happen, otherwise the entire picture will be soft. Even if you increase aperture within limits, since it changes exposure you need to either slow down your shutter speed or increase ISO. Yes, welcome to the hell of the macro world. It’s a whole trial and error process to see what’s acceptable for you in given conditions.

Exposure / Lack of Light

As mentioned above, you need to increase your aperture to your maximum limit if you want your tiny subject to be completely in focus. But with this approach, your exposure will be down by miles. In order to get proper exposure, you can do a few things:

• Decrease shutter speed if possible (stationary subject)
• Increase ISO to acceptable limits
• Use some sort of flash
• The best solution is a combination of all of the above.

Nowadays camera ISO performance is pretty good, so you can go with this option safely. Flashes and some modifiers are also cheap. Even pop-up flashes will work. I do all macro work with a pop-up flash. It can produce decent results. Shutter speed cannot be changed in many situations but whenever it’s possible, go for it.

Noise Reduction

Even after all these remedies, your pictures might still have a lot of noise, especially if you’re using crop sensor camera bodies like me. And since macro pictures are normally simple in composition with very plain/creamy backgrounds, noise is very much visible. You might not come across this noise issue in other types of photography, but you need to seriously know how to reduce noise in you photos now. Noise reduction and sharpening go side by side, and I can point you some of very good tutorials that really helped me overcome this.

The whole point of this section is not to de-motivate you but to actually prepare you to handle all these issues. They are not as big as they seem. But if you really want your photographs to be like the ones you see on the Internet, you need to work around these issues.

Macro photography is really fun. Even on days when you feel dull and you don’t want to go outside for landscapes, street, or any other type of photography, you can do macro in your backyard or even in your room. It’s demanding but at the same time very rewarding.

Gear

If budget isn’t a problem, you can certainly go for following gear to help you in your task:

• Ring flashes for beautiful even lighting or even separate TTL flash for controlled lighting.
• Full frame body for better ISO performance.
• A good tripod with cable release for stationary subjects.
• Flash modifiers and backgrounds for creating mood in your photos.

If you’re on a budget, don’t let it hamper your spirit. You can do everything without all fancy gear. You just need to be patient and know have to how to work around these issues. The word is persistence. Stick to your goals. You don’t even need a dedicated macro lens. If you’re on a budget, you can go the following route:

• Instead of a dedicated macro lens go for a reverse ring or extension tubes. They’re a little difficult to use but much less costly than lenses.
• Instead of ring flashes, purchase pop-up flash modifiers.
• Learn thoroughly how to reduce noise and increase sharpness in Lightroom and/or Photoshop.

That’s it. Happy hunting!

About the Author:
Imran Zahid works as a software consultant in Oman and is originally from Pakistan. He is a self taught photographer who says it’s his lifetime passion.
Blog: http://ift.tt/1P0nhYH
Portfolio: http://ift.tt/1ue5KbO

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PictureCorrect.com: Interesting Photo of the Day: Standoff Between Heron and Hawk

The Internet’s favorite kind of nature photo is an anthropomorphic nature photo. Sure, we could look at pretty photos of birds if we wanted to, but isn’t it cooler to look at birds acting like humans?

“Hands up” by Georg Scarf (Via Imgur. Click image to see full size.)

This moment—of a mighty grey heron threatening a hawk—was captured by Luxembourgish nature photographer Georg Scarf, who shot it with a Nikon D4S with a 300mm lens. Because nature photography calls for extremely fast shutter speeds, Scarf opted for a 1/1600 second exposure, compensated by an aperture of f/2.8 and an ISO of 1600.

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PictureCorrect.com: 5 Quick & Dirty Tips to Nailing Focus

It’s a sad fact of every photographer’s life. At some point, you will take a photograph that might have been your best if you hadn’t messed up one thing: focus. It’s a reminder that you can be at the right place at the right time and still get it wrong.

But there are photography techniques—doable right now—that will decrease the chances of you screwing up focus. I found some really great ones in James Brandon’s Tack Sharp ebook. His techniques are cheap and—better yet—easy to do. Here are a few of my favorite tips that I learned:

1. Carry a tripod with you and use it all the time

Yes, a tripod is heavy (if it’s not, you’re wasting your money). Yes, it might also slow you down. And, sure, you won’t be able to hide from anybody while lugging one around. But if you want the sharpest image possible, you’re going to have to get a tripod.

Besides stabilizing you, a tripod forces you to frame your shots and level your horizon, which are creative bonuses. You’ll also be able to achieve the sharpest focus with the slowest shutter speeds (anything less than 1/50 of a second wouldn’t be possible otherwise). Think of your tripod as the ultimate steady hand, one your actual hand can never beat.

2. That said, blistering fast shutter speeds can also increase sharpness

If you absolutely can’t use a tripod, then bumping up the speed of your shutter will increase how crisp your final image will be. For consistent results, 1/1000 of a second or faster is always best. At this speed you’ll be able to freeze action at a football game or a racetrack, for example.

The reason this works is probability. The longer the shutter stays open, the more room for error. Or, to think of it another way, the quicker your shutter closes the less time you have to mess up. At speeds slower than 1/1000 of a second, even the slightest movement your camera picks up—both inside your camera or in front of it—will blur your image ever so slightly (you might have to zoom in on your computer to see it).

3. So what do you do if you’re going hand-held? Are you doing it right?

Okay, so using a tripod is out of the question. But you’ve set your shutter to 1/1000 of a second. So how do you give yourself the best chance of getting sharp photos? One good way is to make sure you’re holding your camera the right way. No duh, right?

One sure sign of an amateur is somebody who holds their camera incorrectly. They zoom in and out from the top of the camera with their fingertips. The correct way is holding the entire weight of the camera with the hand that isn’t pressing the shutter.

The second step is your weight distribution. One great technique is to place one foot slightly ahead of the other while putting 70 percent of your weight into it. The other 30 percent should go to your back one. While you’re doing that, you should also tuck in your elbows. Point them to the ground as if you’re about to shoot a rifle. With these techniques, you’ll decrease the likelihood of shaking while shooting.

4. For super long exposures, use a self timer

When you’re shooting with long shutter speeds—30 seconds, for instance—any movement in the camera can cause problems in the final image. Landscapes, night photography, and group portraits are perfect times to use slower shutter speeds. Most cameras have the ability to use a self-timer that’s hidden in their menus. You can find out whether your camera has one in your owner’s manual. Most will even give you the option for 10 second wait, 2 second wait, and so on.

Once the camera is out of your hands and on a tripod, focusing will only be issue of getting the subject into the right settings and distance.

5. Live view and manual focus

Another great technique for achieving super sharp photos is using manual focus in Live View. Of course, this technique works best, like the one above, when you you have a tripod and are able to keep still and think. Landscapes, architecture, travel, and studio portraits are all great for this.

By using manual focus in Live View, you give yourself an ability to hone in on any part of your frame and actually see what’s in focus. Say you’re shooting a portrait and want your subject’s eyes in crystal clear focus, with this technique, you’ll be able to zoom in (there should be a button on your camera with a plus sign) and check your focus. Some cameras can zoom in to 10 times the actual size of the subject. Any time you see something that close, you must be seeing clearly.

But remember these tips aren’t comprehensive. Getting your focus is a delicate dance between many interacting factors. These are just some that every photographer should have in their back pocket.

If you want to learn how to nail focus step by step, you should check out James Brandon’s Tack Sharp – Photography Tips for Nailing Focus. It’s a fast read—in-depth. Like I said, it’s the definitive guide to pulling off the super sharp photos.

About the Author:
I love writing about photography (PhotoWhoa Blog) and keep it as simple as possible. In my leisure time, I watch TV and looking for new places to eat and review them. I also love to connect with new people across the globe, hence you can always find me online on Skype and Twitter (@amruta_mohod).

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PictureCorrect.com: Beginner’s Guide to Tonal Adjustment Sliders in Camera Raw

I like to learn by doing—so when I opened my first RAW photo, naturally, I simply played around with the various sliders until I found a level I was happy with. But while experimenting is a vital part of learning both photography and post-processing, grasping a full understanding of the process allowed me to both troubleshoot specific issues and cut back on editing time.

photo by Hillary K. Grigonis

Tonal sliders apply adjustments to the image as a whole, but each one controls a different tone. By adjusting each tone, you can turn a digital file into one that’s much closer to the picture you have in your mind. Tonal adjustment sliders are fairly universal too—once you learn the sliders in Camera RAW, you can comfortably use the Lightroom controls and vice versa. Here’s what beginners need to know about tonal adjustment sliders.

A Note About the Histogram

Whether you use Camera RAW or Lightroom, you’ll see a histogram in the upper right corner of your screen. Just like the histogram on your camera, it’s simply a depiction of all the pixels in the image on a chart. Ideally, the peaks on that chart should never be cut off on the right or left sides. But if the peaks are cut off, that’s often something that can be remedied by using the tonal adjustment sliders.

If the high points in your histogram are too close to one side, move the sliders in the opposite direction to correct it. Watch both the image and the histogram as you make adjustments to help decide how far to move the slider.

photo by Bert Heymans

Exposure

The exposure slider works in the same way as your camera’s exposure compensation control. Adjusting this slider changes the image’s overall exposure, lightening and darkening the image across all the tones. Unlike the more specific controls, the exposure slider adjusts lights, darks and midtones all at once. Making even small adjustments with the exposure slider can have a big impact on your photo. This slider is best used for fixing small exposure errors. While it’s one of the first sliders to use, you can leave it alone if you nailed the exposure in-camera.

Highlights

The highlight slider adjusts only the lighter parts of the image, without affecting the other tones. The very lightest portions of the image aren’t affected (the whites slider takes care of that), but this slider affects most of the lighter tones. Pulling the slider to the left will help bring back details lost in lighter areas of the image—like inside the clouds, for example. Moving the slider to the right will emphasize the bright areas—like if you want to intentionally blow out the background on a backlit portrait without affecting the subject.

Tip: To turn on the highlight warning or “blinkies” in Camera RAW or Lightroom, click the arrow in the upper right corner of your histogram.

Shadows

The shadows slider is the exact opposite of the highlights—it adjusts the darker portions of the image, though again not the very darkest. Adjusting to the left will darken the shadows, which helps enhance an image’s contrast. On the other hand, if the shadows are concealing some details, moving to the right will help recover some of them. This slider can be a big help in processing an image that’s backlit.

Whites

What the white slider adjusts is pretty obvious—it’s the brightest tones that the highlight slider doesn’t adjust. But what kind of scenarios call for using this option? Brightening (dragging to the right) the whites will add contrast to an image—this is one slider that black and white photographers shouldn’t ignore. And while most of the time the highlight slider will recover clipping, drawing the slider to the left is sometimes needed to correct an extreme clip.

Blacks

Again, there’s no guessing here—the blacks slider will lighten or darken the image’s darkest tones that aren’t affected by the shadows adjustments. Just like the white slider, the blacks is a good one to use for a black and white image, helping ensure that the image has a true black. On a color image, moving the black to the left will saturate the color a bit more.

Contrast

Of course, we can’t leave out the midtones. Using the contrast slider actually adjusts all tones, but affects the midtones the most. Instead of moving the peaks on the histogram (i.e. lightening or darkening), the contrast slider will widen the peaks. This option is best used when adjusting the other sliders didn’t offer enough of a contrast boost.

photo by Hillary K. Grigonis

What Order Should I Use the Tonal Sliders In?

For the most part, Adobe lists the sliders about in the order that you should use them. It’s okay to go back and make small adjustments in the earlier sliders if you see the photo is a little off. The thing to keep in mind is that contrast should always be saved for last. If you lighten the lights and darken the darks, you’ll get quite a bit of contrast without even touching the contrast slider.

The tonal sliders in Camera RAW and Lightroom are great for making big adjustments in a minimal amount of time. Individual sliders help you make specific adjustments to just the light colors or just the darks. Keep an eye on the histogram as well as the image and you can make some pretty dramatic changes to your shots.

About the Author:
Hillary K. Grigonis is a lifestyle photographer and writer. She combines those two passions by writing photography tips for CreativeLive.

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PictureCorrect.com: Smoke and Tea Photography Session Behind the Scenes

Do Burning Man tea houses have a life after the annual Nevada desert extravaganza? Some do! Entranced by the scene of the Deep Tea Haus at Burning Man, wardrobe stylist Jasmine Hamed decided to team up with professional photographer Thomas Kuoh to shoot a “smoking hot gypsy tea party.” Here’s how they put it together:

The Deep Tea House started out as a birthday celebration for one of its members. The participants liked it so much they decided to bring it to Burning Man as a tea kitchen whose aim was to combine beautiful sound and house music with an intentional tea service. The next thing you know, they find themselves at the house of famous designer Hicham Tazi for an afternoon of bohemian costumes, Moroccan decor, and, of course, tea.

Although ostensibly just a gathering of friends enjoying some tea and music, such lifestyle shoots can be pretty complex to put together. For this shoot, photographer Thomas Kuoh brought in a team of artists to do the make up, hair, jewelry, wardrobe, modeling, and props, as well as a number of photography assistants.

Originally intended to take place in a Tibetan yurt, Kuoh had to change the venue at the last minute. Luckily he’d collaborated with Tazi before and was able to move the shoot to his beautiful, Morrocan-style house. In the end the shoot went off magnificently, a great time was had by all, and Kuoh came away with some great photos.

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PictureCorrect.com: Tips for Setting Up Your Own Home Portrait Studio

Your studio is not only your place of work, it’s your zone—the place where you can be yourself. It’s a place where nothing distracts you, leaving you submerged in your creativity. It’s also the place where you bring your clients. So it’s important how you choose to design the layout and furnishings. In this video, Ruth Medjber shares some valuable pointers for setting up your studio:

Seating

The first thing Medjber stresses on is seating arrangement. Her studio has a surprisingly varied number of chairs and stools, and a couch.

“I find when you bring people into the studio, if you have them standing up straight away they get a bit stiff and a bit uncomfortable for the first few shots.”

Medjber’s studio has plenty of seating in different styles.

Asking your clients to sit down and relax makes them comfortable and their postures are automatically relaxed when it’s time to photograph them.

Medjber even uses the couch in her studio for some of her shoots, like the one below:

Medjber used the couch in her studio as a prop for this photo.

Music

“Another important thing to have on in the studio, I find, is music. I always have a little speaker system, playing tunes when people come in. so that it’s a nice vibrant atmosphere.”

Temperature

Don’t forget to leave the heat on. A warm welcoming studio is a much better place to be in than one that’s freezing cold.

Pace

The last thing you want to do is to rush your clients through a photo shoot. The studio experience should be relaxed and entertaining. Leave some photo books or even some light reading material on the table so that you clients don’t feel they are all alone while you’re setting up lights and props.

Character

Showcase your style. Put up some of your past work on a wall. This is a nice way to show a bit of your character to your clients rather than them seeing only your professional side.

Personalize your space.

Mirror

Leave a large—if possible life-sized—mirror on the wall. It’s a wonderful idea for your clients to reassure themselves that they are looking great.

Creativity

The space inside your studio is yours. Work your mojo and don’t let anybody influence you or tell you this isn’t correct or that isn’t right. If you love something and know it in your heart, go for it!

Take your time when setting up your space. Your studio serves a dual purpose—to bring out the best in you and in your clients.

For Further Help Speeding Up Your Portrait Workflow:

If you want to reduce the amount of time you spend on post processing and get amazing results with your photos, Lightroom presets can be the answer. The bundle includes 14 different packs of presets and a total of 300 presets that will totally change your work in Lightroom. These presets can be used in Lightroom 4, 5, 6, or CC and on a Mac or a PC.

Found here: Lightroom Presets for 1 Click Portrait Editing

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PictureCorrect.com: 10 Delicious Ways to Improve Your iPhone Food Photography

As social media has exploded in popularity in recent years, we have also seen a drastic increase in food photographers. These artists often use Instagram and Facebook as platforms to share their work, and some creatives have even gone so far as to dedicate their channels entirely to iPhone photography (also labeled “iPhonography” by some).

In the following video, iPhone photographer Jack Hollingsworth joins forces with AdoramaTV to summarize a handful of Hollingsworth’s most valuable tips for creating captivating food photography:

1. Simplify your compositions.

Since iPhone photography is generally created to be shared online via social media platforms, Hollingsworth prefers to create simple, eye-catching compositions, rather than waste time incorporating details that most viewers probably won’t catch.

“The most inspiring shots are the simple ones,” said Hollingsworth. “It’s pointless here to get too complicated with your shot as those fine details will generally go unnoticed.”

2. Try shooting from overhead.

Many iPhone food photographers use the three-quarter front view angle in their work, but many of Hollingsworth’s images are made with an overhead viewpoint. This perspective is also called the “top,” “top down,” or “bird’s eye” view.

“The Front view is when the camera is 45 degrees to the subject… the same view we see when we sit down at a table to eat,” said Hollingsworth. “I like the overhead view for its graphic appeal.”

3. Use natural light.

As with portrait photography, natural light is usually much more flattering than artificial light for food shots.

“Ask to be seated near a window. Use your white napkin to ‘bounce’ back light into the shadow side.”

4. Style your photos artfully.

Styling is incredibly important in food photography — especially when you’re aiming to create simple yet effective compositions as discussed in the first tip. Make sure that every aspect of a particular dish and your table setting complement each other.

“Styling is any intentional arrangement or placements of elements in the scene to make it more lyrical,” said Hollingsworth. “[It] can either make or break a food photography.”

5. Photograph food at room temperature.

Since most foods look most appetizing at room temperature, you’ll need to work fast to get a great shot before your meal cools down too much.

“You have a very small window. Shoot as soon as it is plated.”

6. Don’t depend on filters.

If you’re depending on filters to make your food photos look good, chances are, you aren’t making great images. Hollingsworth rarely uses filters when he edits his work because he wants his work to look as natural as possible.

“Remember, you are trying to make your food look as natural as possible,” said Hollingsworth. “Wonky filters make food look anything but natural.”

7. Utilize a tripod indoors.

Hollingsworth uses a tripod to create almost every indoor food shot to be certain that he is capturing the scene with uncompromising sharpness. His go-to image stabilization kit includes a MeFOTO RoadTrip Travel Tripod Kit with an added SideKick360 Plus Smartphone Adapter.

8. Control the white balance.

As you tweak your camera app’s settings to photograph your meal, be sure to adjust the white balance so that the dish looks as natural and neutral as possible. For maximum control, Hollingsworth recommends shooting with Camera+.

“The iPhone camera bundles exposure, focus, and white balance together. I use [the] Camera+ app for manual control over my white balance.”

9. Slightly overexpose your food photos.

Where food generally looks best in bright, natural light, Hollingsworth actually likes to take things a step further and photograph dishes with a bit “too much” light within the iPhone’s 8-stop dynamic range.

“I like to overexpose my food shots slightly so they look more modern and contemporary,” said Hollingsworth. “You do this on an iPhone [by] first locking your exposure on [the subject and] then using the exposure compensation slider to brighten to your taste.”

10. Focus viewers’ attention to a specific point.

Through your iPhone’s tap-to-focus feature, you can easily direct viewers’ attentions to any specific point in your image. Don’t just rely on auto focus!

“When I shoot food, I never use auto-focus. I always ‘tap-to-focus’ [on] the part that I want to direct the viewer[‘s] attention to.”

For further training: The Tasty Food Photography eBook

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PictureCorrect.com: Moon Photography Tips

It’s not hard to learn how to capture the moon’s craters and detail with your digital camera. In fact, once you get a handle on why you must use these wonderful photographic methods, taking pictures of the moon will be pretty easy.

photo by USFWS Mountain-Prairie

A Cloudless Night

The first thing to try for, naturally, is a clear night—a night without clouds. Clouds can smear and smudge an otherwise sharp photo of the moon’s craters. A lovely, clear night provides the ideal circumstances to take photos of the moon. If there are clouds that butt in, then use that. Try a photo of a soft cloud streaking gently in front of the surface of the moon. This really does lay the foundation for superb images. So let’s have a look at precisely what you will want for your moon shots.

How Close?

Lets examine what focal length works best. If you want to take pictures of the moon close up, use a four inch telescope. You can screw your camera on a mount and then the telescope effectively results in being your lens. It utilizes the lens and you can get close images quite straightforwardly. Of course your camera will need to have the ability to interchange its lenses.

photo by Emilio Küffer

If you don’t own a telescope then you can use a telephoto lens. A telephoto lens is a lens that is very long. You may have seen them before. It is used for wildlife photography and portraiture, like wedding photography. A good range of focal length might be something like 200mm to 400mm. These telephoto lenses are very expensive but get the loveliest shots.

Moonlight

Numerous people capture the moon the equivalent way as they would a dark night time city scene. If you do this , you may experience a big ball of bright light against a black night sky, without detail. That may be okay if you’re photographing the moon over a pond, for example, but if you like to take photos of the craters, then this is not the way to shoot it.

photo by Jorn van Maanen

The moon is very, very bright, especially when it’s full. I suggest choosing settings that are used for brighter, daylight conditions. I know this sounds funny, so bear with me.

When I shoot the moon I put my settings at anything from 1/180 of a second to 1/60 of a second. If you’re not sure which shutter speed is better to use then try few shots on a different selection of shutter speeds to get the best one.

Setting Up

You will want a tripod when you take photos of the moon. Since the moon is so far away, any movement of the camera and you may chance missing the gorgeous craters. Position your camera on a tripod, and if you have one, use a shutter remote cable to be in command of the shutter speed. We use these because we do not want to accidentally move the camera by pressing the shutter button down. And that’s right, even movement as light as a finger can put your entire photo out of focus.

Keep the Camera Still

It’s essential to keep the camera fixed and immobile so you get everything in focus. I use manual focus so I can get the craters as sharp as I can. I occasionally find that auto focus can either have difficulties getting the correct focus or sometimes can’t focus in the least. It can be time consuming and frustrating. Try moving the focus ring until you come across a position whereby the moon’s craters look razor sharp.

Lighting Sensitivity

ISO is a quality of your digital camera that controls how responsive the camera is to lighting. If you’re photographing the moon as the major theme against a black sky, then you will not want a very high ISO.

If you’re shooting the moon as an addition to your shot, then this becomes a different matter altogether. The closer you get to the moon, the less ISO you require.

What about the camera’s aperture?

Since the moon is so far away I would suggest shooting with a middle aperture (something around f/8 or f/11). In fact it is so far away that you don’t really need to worry about depth of field.

photo by Hernán Piñera

Image Quality

Shoot at the very maximum quality you can. I always select RAW for all my photos and shooting the moon is no exception. If you want excellent quality pictures then opt for the highest quality setting you can go. Even if you’re not able to shoot in RAW, pick the largest JPEG size possible.

Sharpening and Tweaking

Once you’ve taken your moon photograph, you may have to sharpen it a bit. Not for the reason that your photo will come out blurry, but remember, it’s over 300,000 kilometers away. A little increase in the sharpening will help enhance some of detail in the craters. Try improving the darks and lights a little too by using your contrast tool in Photoshop or your favorite editing program. That naturally helps to give the surface more of a three dimensional look and detail, rather than having a large flat white surface. Increasing contrast, clarity, and sharpness makes the craters look deeper and more interesting.

Moon photography is so much fun. Just apply some of these principles and methods that I use and you will pleasantly surprised at the lovely photos you get.

About the Author:
Amy Renfrey writes for DigitalPhotographySuccess.com. She’s photographed many things from famous musicians (Drummers for Prince and Anastasia) to weddings and portraits of babies. Amy also teaches photography online to her students.

Looney 11 Rule:

The “looney 11 rule” states that for astronomical photos of the Moon’s surface, set aperture to f/11 and shutter speed to the (reciprocal of the) ISO film speed (or ISO setting).”

• With ISO 100, one sets the aperture to f/11 and the shutter speed to 1/100 or 1/125 second.
• With ISO 200, aperture at f/11, set shutter speed to 1/200 or 1/250.
• With ISO 400, aperture at f/11, set shutter speed to 1/400 or 1/500.

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