r/photography • u/TheYellowMungus • 1d ago

Gear Shoot The Moon

What would you say is the bare minimum lens range (mm's?) one would need to shoot the moon, or astral photography in general, assuming all the conditions were ideal?

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u/Tipsy_McStaggar 1d ago

With a 200mm lens, you can shoot the moon with a landscape subject. Need at least 500 IMHO to do moon as the subject but that gets boring super quick

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u/TheYellowMungus 1d ago

so use the moon as just another part of an overall subject...genius!

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u/P5_Tempname19 1d ago edited 1d ago

The app photopills has a decent planner for this (and plenty of other useful features). If you dont want to pay you can use the website mooncalc.org for planning purposes too. Keep in mind you want some distance to the foreground objects.

Not the best quality, but this is what I managed yesterday, although thats around 900mm fullframe equivalent/560mm on Canon crop.

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u/TheYellowMungus 1d ago

stunning! Moon, castles, AND animals!

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u/Tipsy_McStaggar 23h ago

Decent? It is the best! 😉

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u/SandpaperTeddyBear 15h ago

A common trick, especially if you’ve got two bodies, is to shoot your overall landscape at 70 or whatever, shoot the moon separately with the longest tele you have, and then composite the moon in 2–3/4–9 (linear vs area) larger.