Super-Perigee Moon, 2011. Shot with a 300mm Nikkor lens and then cropped in Photoshop.
Photographing the moon: Tips for exposing moon photos correctly and for choosing the right lens.
Photographing
the moon--whether it's the main subject of your twilight/night photos or is just a visual element in them--always seems somewhat exotic to me because not only are you
usually (not always) making a night photograph, but you're also
photographing a landscape that only a dozen or so people have actually
walked on. Taking pictures of the moon is also fun because you get
another chance--weather permitting--almost every night. Although I
prefer to shoot the moon when it's full, it's also great to capture one
of those thin silver crescents in the twilight sky.
Photographing
the moon is very simple and you can even do it in your "automatic"
exposure mode. Interestingly enough, the correct exposure for a bright
full moon (excluding whatever landscape you have in the foreground) is
the same as for a sunny day: about 1/250 at f/16 at ISO 200. And why
not, after all, it's being illuminated by the sun! You may have to
adjust your exposure a bit if you want some foreground detail, but as a
starting point, I would just put the camera in auto (or try night mode)
and check your first shots on the LCD. If it looks too dark, add some
exposure using the exposure compensation dial.
There is one
trick to shooting the moon though and that's being sure to include a
good ground reference. When you look at a huge full moon (especially
when it's first rising in the twilight sky) it looks huge and the
reason is because you have the horizon or some other ground reference.
As the moon rises in the sky it becomes smaller and smaller. That's why
it's also good to consult a tide/moon chart and see when there is going
to be a good full moon and get to your location before it starts to
rise. That way you can get a number of exposures before the moon gets
too high in the sky and the size diminishes.
Sometimes a great
moon will surprise you, too. I shot the full moon and power lines here
in Port Aransas, Texas after photographing a sunset (and the afterglow)
intently for about an hour. I turned around to pack up my gear and saw
this huge full moon, so I slapped my 300mm lens back on the Nikon D70s
body and started shooting. Remember, the sun sets in the west and the
moon rises in the east, so next time you're photographing a sunset,
turn around and look for the rising moon!
Also, keep in mind that the focal length of the lens that you're using will have a huge impact on how big your moon looks. I suggest starting with a 150mm lens (35mm equivalent) or longer and preferably something in the 300mm range. The 10x and longer lenses that are on some advanced zoom cameras are perfect for moon photography and, in fact, I bought a Kodak advanced zoom camera with a 10x zoom specifically for shots of the moon. The size of the moon isn't always an issue though. Sometimes just a tiny sliver of moon, like the silver crescent moon in the saguaro shots is enough to add a nice touch to a terrestrial landscape.
Photographing the Moon in Daylight:
Remember too, the moon is often visible in the daytime and in that case
you can usually just expose for the earth landscape and, unless the
foreground is very dark and the moon is unusually bright you will
probably get a fairly well-balanced exposure. If the foreground is dark and you open up to get more detail you may
lose some detail in the moon and conversely, if the moon is very bright
and you expose to get surface detail in the lunar surface, you may lose
some of the darker shadow areas in your terrestrial landscape.
It's a balancing act and you may want to bracket exposures a bit (over a three-stop range, in one-stop increments) and see which looks best or shoot in RAW so that you can reset the ISO speed, but often I find just a carefully chosen ground exposure with a moon of average brightness creates a good overall exposure.
One potential solution for good moon photos in daylight is to use HDR (High Dynamic Range) techniques, but remember, if you use several exposures you need to shoot them quickly (auto bracketing mode is a good idea) since the moon and earth are continually moving and it will be hard to match up the exposures if you linger more than a split second.
At twilight you're often working in silhouette, so the problem is less
obvious. The shots of the saguaro near Tucson, for example, were made
in early twilight and I just exposed for the silhouette normally and
let the moon turn into a silver sliver.
The very first moon photo ever made was photographed by John W. Draper in 1839; Draper was an American born in England. Pretty amazing photo! Click here if you would like to see the first photo of Earth made from the Moon.
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