The moon is an interesting photographic subject. Last November, I captured this image in front of my house.

In February of 2024, I captured the Moon Star.

In April of 2024, I captured the Magic Moon.

On October 21, 2024, at 11h00 pm, I went outside, and I saw the half moon up in the sky. I went inside the house to get my camera, my 600 mm lens, and the flash.

My close neighbor has a black birch tree with nice-colored foliage. I went close to the tree and found a visual passage through its branches and leaves to watch the pretty moon.

My experience shooting the moon has shown that spot metering yields the best results. For optimal exposure (ETTR), I overexposed the metered readings by 1.7 stops. For more sensitivity, I set the ISO to 1600. My flash was set to overexpose by 2 stops.

Finally, handheld, I focused on the moon. When I triggered the shutter, the flash lit the colored leaves, which were so close that they were out of focus.

The moon, as a subject, forces us to be familiar with our gear and requires creativity. Looking at this beauty, I will try to plan the next full moon!