Moonshine

Not the drinking kind of moonshine but it has an intoxicating effect on some poets anyway. I shot this photo during an evening shoot of some daylilies. When the sun went down too far for more handheld photos of flowers I looked up and noticed the moon. I learned some years ago that the trick to photographing the moon so that you can see the 'face' is to shoot it at the same exposure as you would for full sun* because the moon, which is your main subject, is in full sun. Of course if you wait until it is too dark that means everything else is underexposed and black. That brings up the second trick which is to shoot the moon at twilight while there is still enough light and color in the sky and of course a few clouds help too.

*Exposure for full sun is f/16 at whatever your ISO is for the shutter speed. I.E. ISO 100 full sun exposure is f/16 @ 1/100th sec. Some photographers like to open up one stop to f/11 but too much exposure will wash out the detail and you'll just get a white disk. Try both to see how it works for your camera.