Supermoon alert - Expert Help?

[Victress2007]

Ok, we've all heard about the SuperMoon this weekend. I have a wonderful spot to take a picture, but I'm not sure how to go about it. Other than using a tripod - I have the HX9V.

 

Any Suggestions?

 

Thanks,

Vic

[Rocky252]

The tripod will be helpful. You'll probably want to use the timer-delay shutter release, so you don't shake the camera to trip the shutter. Since the moon will be in a dark sky, the camera's autoexposure will try to over-expose it, and you'll get a blown-out white circle in a dark sky. You'll need to reduce the exposure until you get a shot that looks good to you. You could try for a close-up of the moon itself, or go for a landscape shot, with some interesting terrain or foliage in the foreground.

 

Frankly though, the 'supermoon' thing is a bit overblown. Because the moon's orbit is slightly eccentric, its distance from Earth varies by roughly +/-5% from its average distance of 240,000 miles. The full moon this month will be closer, and larger, than normal, but you'd have a hard time noticing the difference.

[zackiedawg]

The easiest way to shoot the moon, especially if you don't really have much experience with cameras or settings, is to set the camera to 'spot meter' mode. If you use 'auto' mode, you'll have to switch to 'P' mode to at least be able to get to the settings for the metering mode. Then, zoom all the way to the max you can go, point at the moon, and get that spot meter indicator in the middle of your screen to be entirely within the moon, and half-press the shutter to focus...using the LCD to see the shot, you should fairly clearly see the moon go from a blown-out white blob to a nicely detailed surface with crater details and such.

 

Surprisingly, you may not need a tripod. The moon's surface is actually 'daylight' - it's fully illuminated by the sun, so when you meter off the moon at night, it's like metering during a sunny day at the beach. Keep your ISO as low as possible - you'll see how your camera will be able to use a pretty fast shutter speed - usually fast enough to allow handheld exposures with a stabilization-equipped camera. A tripod might still be useful if you want, just to eliminate any chance of shaking the camera - use the 2 second timer as well that way you can press the shutter button and get your hands off the camera when it fires.

 

When shooting the moon along with some landscape or scenery, you'll never get a perfect exposure on the surrounding nightscape AND on the moon at the same time - essentially the camera needs to expose the landscape as a long-exposure night shot, and the moon as a bright daylight fast shutter. So most folks who shoot these types of scenes take multiple photos and merge them together to cover the extreme dynamic range. Otherwise, you just have to decide if exposing the moon or the landscape is more important to you.

[Victress2007]

This camera will do a somewhat HDR automatically. Would you go with manual settings or twilight? If I put it on a tripod the twilight scene will do a HDR shot. According to our local moonrise info the sky might not be totally dark. Sunset is at 1906 and moonrise 1930 (but there are some mountains in the way so it takes 15-25 minutes before we see the moon - which is why the picture is worth taking).

 

Vic

[zackiedawg]

Built in HDR may struggle to catch the full dynamic range between moon and even a low light landscape - but you should have a little time to experiment. Shooting them manually will let you go more extreme in the EV range between shots - an in-camera HDR is not likely to exceed 6EV max, and you may need something like 10 EV. However, I'd definitely say it's worth taking a bunch of photos...if the sun still has any residual lighting in early evening, there may be enough light to pick up the landscape with a shorter exposure, and a few shots exposed off the moon and some off the landscape might give you something to work with for blending them. It certainly helps the more light the landscape and sky are compared to the moon. But it's also worth taking a few straight shots of the moon, fully exposed for the moon alone against a black sky - just to have a bunch of styles to work with. And if you're lucky enough to get some minor cloud play, moon and clouds go together very nicely as well.

 

Whatever you do, try to find some trees along the mountain ridge that stand against the sky, or a rock outcrop...catching the moon against that silhouette would be about as 'classic' a moon shot as you could get!

 

This was a photoshop creation many years ago with my P&S camera - the moon shot with the clouds is real, but the mountain ridge, trees and wolf were all photoshopped for fun:

[Victress2007]

Awesome Photoshop work! We're in Arizona, not too many trees around here. :) I wonder if I can catch a coyote?? But a cow is more likely!

 

I'll practice the couple days before and maybe after and see what I can get. Everyone else - get your cameras out and let's see what we can come up with on the weekly picture thread!

 

Thanks for the help,

V

[mitsugirly]

I'm hoping for a nice clear night out for Saturday so that I can get some updated "moon" pictures. It's been awhile since I've done any. :D

 

 

 

I would love to see what everyone comes up with. :)

[dileep]

[Victress2007]

It wasn't so hard to take pictures of the (almost) full moon last night, let's see if a little darkness hinders me tonight.

 

 

 

Vic

[ty&bear]

It wasn't so hard to take pictures of the (almost) full moon last night, let's see if a little darkness hinders me tonight.

 

 

 

Vic

 

nice

[LucyDiamond]

Here, in NJ, it's cloudy and it doesn't look like it's going to clear up anytime soon. I'm looking forward to seeing photos from everyone!

 

Paula

[johneeo]

Here, in NJ, it's cloudy and it doesn't look like it's going to clear up anytime soon. I'm looking forward to seeing photos from everyone!

 

Paula

 

No moon here tonight.

[mitsugirly]

I was able to get off work in time to race home and get a few pics. I'll post mine in the next few days. :)

[dileep]

[shootr]

Tried for another time lapse, I still don't have enough practice to nail down the exposure issue (bright and dim jumpiness). That, and didn't notice the stupid HOUSE right underneath it...

 

One frame from it:

 

 

The TL link:

 

http://s266.photobucket.com/albums/ii276/kingshootr/?action=view&current=MoonLapse03.mp4

 

Lessons learned this time: 1] I just can't zoom - it'll never be smooth when done manually. Plus focus is lost as I zoom. 2] Don't add fade in/out in post, just turns it into an old time looking flickering mess. 3] Pick an exposure and stick to it, I tried to compensate throughout the run, looks horrible.

[Victress2007]

 

One of my favorites although not really a full moon picture.

 

 

On twilight setting

 

 

Most traditional. All in all I think it was ok for a first try. A note, because of the mountain the moon wasn't visible until 45 mins after moonrise.

 

Vic

[dileep]

[MDSue]

Tried for another time lapse, I still don't have enough practice to nail down the exposure issue (bright and dim jumpiness). That, and didn't notice the stupid HOUSE right underneath it...

 

One frame from it:

 

 

The TL link:

 

http://s266.photobucket.com/albums/ii276/kingshootr/?action=view&current=MoonLapse03.mp4

 

Lessons learned this time: 1] I just can't zoom - it'll never be smooth when done manually. Plus focus is lost as I zoom. 2] Don't add fade in/out in post, just turns it into an old time looking flickering mess. 3] Pick an exposure and stick to it, I tried to compensate throughout the run, looks horrible.

 

I think you did a great job! excellent shot

[mitsugirly]

Here's two of mine that I got last night:

 

 

[zackiedawg]

I don't have any way to catch it on the horizon against other objects here where I live due to heavy tree cover and no open views, but I did want to at least get a nice full shot of the supermoon with a lot of optical power...so I used my 500mm lens with a 2x teleconverter for 1000mm, with a 1.5x crop factor on my camera yielding an equivalent of 1500mm:

[shootr]

so I used my 500mm lens with a 2x teleconverter for 1000mm, with a 1.5x crop factor on my camera yielding an equivalent of 1500mm:

 

And still tack sharp - my favorite so far!

[shootr]

OK, dumb question/realization of the year:

 

To me, the most pleasing image is one true to grayscale, without atmospheric "coloring" (or color fringing from less than great optics). Should I just shoot it in monochrome?

 

Feel free to answer with: DUH!!!

[LucyDiamond]

I don't have any way to catch it on the horizon against other objects here where I live due to heavy tree cover and no open views, but I did want to at least get a nice full shot of the supermoon with a lot of optical power...so I used my 500mm lens with a 2x teleconverter for 1000mm, with a 1.5x crop factor on my camera yielding an equivalent of 1500mm:

Great photo! I love the detail and sharpness!!!

 

Paula

[zackiedawg]

ShootR - Just my opinion, but I'd say no on monochrome. Here's why: First, it depends on what you're after - but sometimes the atmospheric coloring can be interesting - let's say you're shooting a blue moon, or harvest moon, and want that coloration that gives it the name. Or the orange or yellow cast one gets from pollution or smoke which might lend a particular atmosphere to the shot. But the second point - you can always just convert to B&W/greyscale in post processing, usually with a single click - so might as well leave your options open.

 

BTW - white balance adjustment before shooting can also get rid of unwanted coloration...the moon I shot above was shot in full color, but looks almost greyscale/monochrome, mostly because it was white balanced and metered off the moon. I didn't even have to convert to B&W - it came that way out of the camera (I shot in JPG rather than RAW).

 

And thank you Paula and Shootr for the comments!

[Tweedy]

I don't have any way to catch it on the horizon against other objects here where I live due to heavy tree cover and no open views, but I did want to at least get a nice full shot of the supermoon with a lot of optical power...so I used my 500mm lens with a 2x teleconverter for 1000mm, with a 1.5x crop factor on my camera yielding an equivalent of 1500mm:

 

Wow... that's alot of moon detail! Awesome!!

 

EDIT... I just had to make one more comment. It kind of looks like a melon (see where it would attach to a vine/stem?)