Shoot for the moon
Which camera settings should you use?
Including the moon in your Halloween shots is certainly one way to capture an evocative image. The trouble is that it can be hard to capture it at a size that will do it justice when you’re shooting a wider scene. You need a lens of around 300mm when you’re using a camera with an APS-C sensor, or 500mm with a full-frame camera.
One option is to shoot a close-up of the moon separately, then add it to your shots, either by using the multipleexposure option on your camera (if it has one), or, more commonly, by blending it with a wider shot in editing software. Use the Screen Blending Mode for the moon layer.
To shoot the moon, attach your camera and lens to a tripod, set the lens to manual focus and use the magnified Live View image to focus on the moon’s surface.
Select Manual exposure mode and try an exposure of 1/250 sec at f/5.6, ISO 800 to start with. Take a test shot and check the histogram. If it’s overexposed, set a faster shutter speed (such as 1/500 sec), or either a narrower aperture (such as f/8) or a lower ISO. If it’s underexposed, increase the ISO or set a wider aperture (if available). Avoid using a shutter speed that’s any slower, as this can lead to blurred shots. To get the sharpest results, fire the camera using a remote shutter release or the built-in timer.