Supermoon 2016

On November 14 & 15, 2016, the moon was the biggest and brightest it has been in more than 60 years. At around 7 and 9PM on Nov. 14, Monday, in Talisay Cebu, Philippines, the clouds were so thick then, it was almost impossible to see it, and t'was nowhere in sight.

However, on November 15, Tuesday, no more thick clouds engulfed the skies so it was the perfect time to take photographs of the moon using my Nikon D5200 camera. 

I had been searching online on how to photograph just the moon and found these very useful tips by Nasim Mansurov.

1. Camera Mode: Set your camera mode to full Manual Mode.
2. ISO: Set your ISO to 100 if you have a Canon DSLR and to 200 if you have a Nikon DSLR (basically, whatever base ISO you have in your camera). For most other brands, the base ISO is also 100. If you have a point and shoot camera, see if you can find a menu setting to set your ISO to 100. Make sure “Auto ISO” is turned Off.
3. Aperture: Set your aperture to f/11.
4. Shutter Speed: Set your shutter speed to 1/125 on cameras with base ISO 100, and to 1/250 on Nikon DSLRs with base ISO 200.
5. Lens Focus: Set your lens to manual focus (either through a switch on the lens or on the camera) and set your focus to infinity. Be careful while setting the focus to infinity, as some lenses allow focusing beyond infinity. On more advanced DSLRs such as Nikon D300, there is a handy feature called “live-view with contrast detect”, which can accurately acquire focus on distant objects. I have used it many times for my moon photography and it works great! If you do not have such a feature in your camera, then try setting your lens to the center of the infinity sign, then take a picture and see if it came out sharp by zooming in the rear LCD of the camera.

So I set my camera settings at: ISO 200, Aperture f/11, Shutter Speed 1/250. 

Supermoon 2016, Cebu Philippines

Supermoon 2016, Cebu, Philipines

Supermoon 2016, close up view, using NikonD500 camera.