Shoot for the Moon

Check the Moon Phase and Rise http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/moonrise.html





It is Earth's closet and largest visible celestial body in the sky. It follows the Earth on our yearly trips around the sun and impacts our blue planet of 70% water by inducing tidal changes. If you like to photograph wide open beaches, exposed beach rock formations and tide pools, crashing waves or drift wood tossed up along the beach you have our Moon to thank.
In the darkest of nights the luminous body of the a moon full moon reflects a soft glowing light that can add a nice soft light to your image.



How would you shoot this celestial body in the night sky?

Similar to the Sun, the moon has its own Golden (or Magical) Hour for optimal effect. The traditional Blue or Golden hour is based off of the suns distance above the horizon. The low angle and atmospheric conditions cast hues of pinks, purples, reds, blues and violates across the lower third of the horizon. But for the moon, the Golden Hour depends on its phase and orbit around Earth. The moon is in constant motion circling the earth at over 2000mph. To capture the moon in a landscape setting is a bit tricky since the moon rise takes place at different times and in different angles in the sky every night. There fore to capture the moon rising behind a mountain, ocean, building, cityscape etc takes some planning to figure out on which day to shoot, which location to be at and  at which time.  This also means taking into account the visibilty of the sky conditions, ie haze, fog, cloud cover, rain etc.
A Full Moon ascending over the eastern horizon just as the sun is setting in the west usually gives the most dramatic shots (within 20min of sunset). The size moon does not change but to have an object such as mountain top or a building close to the moon changes the perceived size making the moon that much larger. Shooting with zoom lenses also helps compress the background in the image making the moon seem larger as well. As the moon continues to rise above the horizon in the night sky she seems to become smaller and smaller without any relation to another object on the ground.

Attaching your camera to tripod, selecting a long zoom lens is the basic setup. Using Spot Metering on the moon face to expose for the bright lunar surface is key for seeing details before the get blown out in in the dark sky. After capturing the moon surface you can bracket additional shots to pull information from the surrounding landscape and in post blend them together.


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