Shoot for the moon: 10 lunar photography tips

Whether it's a glowing orange orb just above the horizon or the soft outline of a silver crescent set against a city backdrop, the moon – the brightest and largest object in the night sky – has long held a fascination for photographers. Full moons and phenomena such as the Harvest Moon, Blue Moon, Blood Moon and eclipses often prompt a flurry of social media shots. These are mostly close-ups of the moon on its own, but photographers on the hunt for a greater creative challenge can take inspiration from Andrew Fusek Peters' moon photography tips and techniques.

The British photographer, whose work regularly appears in national newspapers and magazines, prefers to photograph the moon as part of a wider scene, to tell a story. "I'm always looking for an interesting foreground – to put the moon within a landscape or a built environment," he explains.

He's developed this approach to such a level that people sometimes mistakenly assume he's used composites. In fact, every element of each image is captured in-camera, in RAW. And this is no mean feat, involving a lot of planning, using the right kit, and being in the right place at the right time. Here, Andrew offers his tips for capturing fresh and original photographs of the moon, all year round.

You might assume that the best time to shoot the moon is when it's full, but Andrew says that isn't always the case. "Get out a couple of days before the moon is full," he says. "That means you don't have to do everything in silhouette: you can still get light on the landscape." He cites his shot of Clun Castle in Shropshire (below), as an example. "You can see that the moon is three-quarters full, it's coming up at dusk, and the camera's been able to capture a lot of landscape detail," he explains.

However carefully you plan, when it comes to the actual shoot you have to think on your feet, says Andrew. "The moon is like a species, like wildlife," he explains. "You've got to understand its behaviour. It's extremely shy, and never appears when you think it's going to appear. A bit of cloud can ruin the shot."

Andrew's 2016 picture of the supermoon (below), which made the front page of British national newspaper The Times, very nearly didn't happen. The weather had worked against him, so he'd abandoned his shoot and was heading home. "Then suddenly, driving towards Church Stretton in Shropshire, I saw the clouds clear," he says. "The moon was almost directly behind what I now know is a volcanic structure called Three Fingers Rock. I thought: 'Oh my gosh'.

"With my Canon EOS 7D Mark II, a Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS II USM lens plus a Canon Extender 2x III giving me 1600mm, I knew I had as much reach as I could humanly get. I used a hedge as a tripod, and fired off three shots in a row. And because I knew my focus point – rather than stick the moon in the centre of your picture, it's better to have a leading line – the first shot was the one."

Andrew learnt an important lesson from The Times supermoon shot. "As the photo came out, the moon was all wavy and slightly blurred," he recalls. "And I thought 'Oh, that's because I'm a rubbish photographer.' But then someone said 'No, when the moon is just rising, there's a lot more atmospheric pollution that you're looking through, the atmosphere of the Earth, and that's why the moon appears wavy.' If the moon is high in the sky, you're looking at less atmosphere, and that's when the moon appears sharp."

While tripods are central to star photography, shooting handheld is better when it comes to the moon, says Andrew. "The issue with setting up a tripod is that the moon might not appear exactly where you want it to," he explains. "You need to be able to respond very quickly, and move your position so you can place the moon exactly where you want it in the frame – just like with the distant sunset over hills. You don't have a lot of time, because the light that you want is the last light of the day: dusk light. So to get your shot, you just have to go handheld."

When you expose for the moon, the amount of landscape detail you can capture will depend, in part, on the quality of your lens and on your camera's low-light performance, so that it captures detail you can recover in the shadows.

One question regularly asked is how photographers make the moon look so big. A major factor in this is often the way a telephoto lens compresses perspective. Andrew uses the Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM and the EF 500mm f/4L IS II USM with the Canon Extender 2x III, which suit his purposes perfectly thanks to their high magnification and pin-sharp accuracy. "If you want a big moon," he reasons, "you want big lenses."

Recently, though, he's had the chance to shoot with a Canon RF 600mm F4L IS USM lens paired with a Canon EOS R5. "It's pin-sharp and focuses incredibly fast. The detail it resolves is unbelievable," enthuses Andrew. The 5-stop optical IS system in the lens is also a big bonus for Andrew when it comes to photographing the moon. "I was able to get down to fairly slow shutter speeds," he says. "I needed that because the moon is moving so fast. I'm literally chasing it, so I needed it to work for me, and it absolutely did."

Canon's full-frame mirrorless EOS R5 and EOS R6 offer excellent low-light performance, and Andrew was most impressed by the EOS R5 when he paired it with the Canon RF 600mm F4L IS USM super-telephoto lens. "It's a substantial step forward," he says. "It was resolving really incredible detail. The 45MP full-frame sensor means you can just zoom in, zoom in, zoom in, crop, crop, crop, and there's still detail."

For photographing the moon, the EVF was another huge bonus for Andrew: "The EVF is just brilliant because you want to expose correctly for the moon and it enables you to see that," he says. "As I'm shooting handheld, I need to be able to see what's going on through the viewfinder, which I was able to do very, very quickly."

While the latest telephoto lenses such as the Canon RF 600mm F4L IS USM (and the Canon RF 400mm F2.8L IS USM) have incredibly sophisticated image stabilisation systems that can compensate for camera shake by up to 5-stops, you still need some good fieldcraft if you're going to be photographing the moon handheld.

"There are a couple of ways you can do it," explains Andrew. "First, you can use your head as a balance – you're literally balancing your camera against your forehead and using it as a fulcrum. Second, if you've got a chance when you're running around in the landscape, fence posts are the best monopods I've ever come across. Third, you can use your knee. Knees are wonderful: you can sit down very quickly, rest your left elbow on your knee and you've got a bit of extra stability."

Capturing all the detail of your moon and landscape in RAW is only one part of the equation, stresses Andrew; you also need to do a lot of work in post-processing. "If you've got the exposure right, the moon will still look quite blown out," he explains. "So you pay attention to highlights, whites and shadows, you use radial filters [which allow you to make local adjustments], and you can bring out a ton of detail. And of course, you're going to do work on your foreground, which obviously involves work with shadows, but might also involve various graduated filters."

He adds: "You're doing everything you can to make that RAW file sing. Ansel Adams famously said 'the negative is the score and the print is the performance', and the same thing applies in moon photography when it comes to your RAW and processed files."