Have you ever known someone who is amazed by simple things, but just isn’t impressed by the really complicated stuff? That’s the kind of reaction I often get to pictures of the moon. For some reason people tend to think there’s some kind of magic involved when you take a picture of the moon, but there’s not. With a tiny bit of technique and some understanding of your subject, your friends will think you’re magic too (and there’s no reason to tell them you’re not!)
I’m stating the obvious here, but there are many different types of moon pictures. There’s the close-up, the shot with foreground objects to show scale, the shot with the moon hanging over something, and the one where the moon is in the shot but it’s also your main light source for everything else. I’m going to attempt to cover the commonalities first, and then touch on the differences for getting those other shots.
Here are the items you will need for any good shot of the moon:
- Sturdy tripod.
- Remote or delay timer.
Before we talk about actually taking the shot, we need to understand some basic info about what’s going on with our subject.
- The moon is a moving target (actually, most of the apparent motion is because you’re standing on a rotating earth) and as with all moving targets, if you want a sharp image, you need a fast shutter speed. The tighter the frame (or the more you’ve zoomed in), the faster the moon will appear to move.
- The moon is very bright relative to the other natural lights in the night sky so your camera is going to have a hard time figuring out the correct exposure. The wider the shot (or the smaller the moon is in your frame), the further off your autoexposure will be.
- The moon rises about 50 minutes later each night. If you found a good location tonight but missed it, you can go out get it again tomorrow.
- The full moon rises at about the same time the sun sets and on the opposite side of the sky.
Now that you better understand your subject we can take a look at capturing it.
- Avoid Camera Shake – Anytime you shoot in the dark or use a long lens, camera shake and motion blur are going to be an issue. Always use a tripod and a remote trigger (or your camera’s built-in timer delay) to get the sharpest image possible. If you don’t have a nice tripod, a bag of rice or birdseed is a great camera rest that will keep your camera steady and still allow you some leeway to frame up your shot. (Just make sure you’ve set it on something solid.)
- Correct Exposure (of the Moon)- The moon is not bright white. When exposed correctly, it should be shades of grey. Sometimes you’ll have a bit of yellow, orange, or red depending on the atmosphere you’re shooting through. Your camera’s exposure meter will most likely try to overexpose the shot (unless you’re spot metering directly from the brightest part.) Use your manual mode or exposure compensation feature to underexpose your shot by 1-2 stops as a starting point and then fine tune from there.
- Focus – Getting proper focus should be fairly straight forward. Even a sliver of a moon should give you enough light to get into sharp focus. If you find yourself manually focusing, it should be close to infinity. If your camera has a Live Mode, you can use that to zoom in on the moon and get sharp focus.
- Eliminate Motion Blur – Just like freezing any motion, you’ll need to use a fast enough shutter speed so that the moon does not move across your frame fast enough to cause blurring. The more you zoom in the faster the moon will appear to move and the faster your shutter speed will need to be. Even though the moon is bright relative to the surroundings, you may still find yourself without enough light for a fast enough shutter speed. Either open your aperture (smaller F number) or increase your ISO, but remember, both of those things may affect your image quality by increasing noise and changing your depth of field.
Other techniques:
- If you’re trying to include other objects in the image, exposure can be tricky. You can, of course, take a multiple exposure or combine images in post to achieve a particular vision, but there’s something satisfying about pulling off a correctly exposed total image that includes the moon as well. There are two ways of doing this. One is to pick a foreground that is artificially lit and/or has water to carry the moon’s reflection. The classic moon over a cityscape is a good example of this. Another is to shoot just before sunset on the day before the full moon. During this time the exposure settings for the moon and for anything being lit by the remaining sunlight will be about the same. If you have a subject in mind, pick a location that puts you in between it and the sunset and the moon will rise close to behind it.
- If you’re trying to use an extremely long lens (or are attached to a telescope), camera shake, mirror slap, and motion blur will be a concern. Deal with those by using a remote shutter release and something to handle the force of the mirror moving.
- Show the size of the moon by including something for scale. A common way to do this is to take the shot while the moon is low and near the horizon. Having the object silhouetted inside the moon is a great effect.
- During a long exposure the moon will overexpose to the point of looking like a softer sun and the sky will become blue. For an interesting shot, try an exposure long enough for the image to look like daytime. The difference will be that you can see the stars.
- Attempting to catch a the smallest moon possible can be fun. Look for a sliver just before (and in the direction of) sunrise when the moon is new.
- Remember, the moon is out in the daytime too!
For more ideas on shooting the moon, check out:
http://flickr.com/groups/moonshots/