What type of camera do I need to take pictures of the moon?

The most important thing is a rock-steady tripod. You can get camera clamps which you can screw to any suitable rigid object - a railing, chair or post, for example. Your camera should have a good optical zoom - preferably at least x10 - but the ideal is to use a single-lens reflex with a telephoto lens. The longer the lens (or zoom factor), the more care you must take about keeping the camera absolutely steady! Most digital cameras will have an automatic exposure facility which will easily cope with taking a good photograph of the moon provided that you can use spot metering and position the image so that the meter exposes for the moon's surface. Even though the moon seems quite bright to the eyes, it is only by contrast to the dark sky and the exposure time may be as long as one second, especially if you set the ISO rating to 100 or 200. Setting it much higher than this is likely to introduce 'noise' (random coloured pixels) in a digital photo.

I also tried the same, apickett. I tried it with my DSLR but I couldn't get the image that I really wish to capture. I hope we could get more help from other myLotters. =)

If you want sharp photos of the moon where you can see the details you will need a good DSLR camera and a motorized tripod that will track the movement of the moon or the stars. You should also be somewhere the lights and the pollution of the city will not effect the photo quality.

Lot of good tips from Owlwings. You can also try taking pictures before it is pitch dark. If you take pictures of the moon at dawn or twilight you get more light and not as sharp contrasts. Depends on how south you live I suppose, we have so long days up here in the north during the summer that it'll usually be some time when the moon is up while it's still quite light.

Hi, The way I see it, it is not the type of camera or the setting that matters. I have a Sony DSLR and a Cybershot, both take decent pics at 16 MP resolution but when I point it at a full moon on a clear night, all I get is a dot in spite of the 10x zoom I set on the lens. Then I realize, I should be using a higher zoom which is beyond the capability of ordinary camera lens that I have so I thought of that astronomical refracting tripod-mounted telescope that I saw on one of the malls nearby, getting 200x zoom or more. If I could get to mate the camera lens to the eyepiece of the said telescope, then maybe, I could photograph even the mountains on the moon even at a conservative 16 MP resolution. That would be my future plan, for now, all I can do is to drool on that astro telescope (it cost a fortune, for me who has no fortune to spend) like a lover staring at the moon on some clear night.