Shooting the Moon
About every 18 years or so, the Moon passes about 50,000 km closer to the Earth producing the effect of the Moon appearing on average 14% larger and 30% brighter in the night sky. This phenomenon is known as the Super Full Moon or Perigee. Yesterday evening and early this morning, this phenomenon occurred once again; the last such event was in March of 1993.
Being such a rare event, I wanted see what I could capture on “film”. So, I ventured outside to the front yard and setup my tripod while I patiently waited the Moon to rise above the cluttered visual noise of palm trees and homes that obscured the eastern horizon. I pulled out the Nikon D7000 and mounted it on the tripod and began setting the camera up the way I figured I would need it to be before the waning light of dusk disappeared for good. I set the camera to “full auto” and “auto” for the ISO mode then set my 18-200 mm lens to manual focus. I thought, naively so, that this would be enough to produce acceptable results… however, I quickly discovered I was wrong.
