On our recent trip, I had an opportunity to shoot the moon.  What you see below is a 400mm lens on a tripod, manually focused on the moon.  the image itself is cropped, but this is 100% of a 10 mpx file.

Moon detail

Here’s the thing about taking pictures of the moon: if you’re going to do it, you really want to wait until the moon is low on the horizon.  The lower it is, the larger it appears (an atmospheric effect).  In Hawaii, on the Big Island, I’ve seen it much larger and brighter.  But this was pretty good, and you can see quite a few details.

Exposure is the other tricky part.  It might take a few tries, and you’ll need to review carefully.  Basically, though: expose for a bright day.  A starting point, for example, might be f/16, ISO 50, and 1/60th (the “sunny 16″ rule).  For this, I started at 1/100, f/16, ISO 100.  The final exposure, though?  1/40th, f/5.6, ISO 200.  All that to reduce the shake on the camera.

Sometimes you have to compromise.