Crescent Moon and Earthshine. Taken with a Nikon D2H DSLR camera and 80-200mm zoom lens working at 135mm at ISO 400 at 1 second exposure at f/2.8 with JPEG file format on a fixed tripod.

Here, the brilliant crescent Moon is illuminated by direct sunshine. The "dark" side of the Moon is visible by Earthshine, sunlight reflected off the Earth back to the Moon. There is a tremendous amount of difference in brightness between the bright Sun-lit crescent, and the much larger portion of the Moon lit by Earthshine.

It is impossible to expose both correctly in a single frame. In this case the correct exposure for the bright crescent was 1/1000th of a second at f/2.8 at ISO 400, and the correct exposure for the Earthshine was 1 second at f/2.8 at ISO 400. This is about 10 stops difference in exposure. If the correct exposure for the bright crescent had been used, detail, such as craters, would have been visible on the crescent portion, but nothing would have been visible on the dark side of the moon, nor would there have been any color or brightness in the sky, and the silhouetted leaves would not have been seen.

For this image, the exposure for the Earthshine was used, which also happened to be close to the correct exposure for the blue sky. Because this exposure was so much longer than the correct exposure for the crescent, the crescent is greatly overexposed and no detail is visible on it.

Several different exposures were made, "bracketing" each exposure a couple of stops plus and minus on the meter reading. "Bracketing" is an old professional photographers trick to ensure a correctly exposed image under conditions where it is difficult to determine exactly what the perfect exposure is, such as this one. The image was also examined on the LCD on the back of the camera to ensure correct exposure.

The image was shot of a fixed tripod because it is impossible to hand-hold a one-second exposure at 135mm of focal length.