In this article I will tell you how to photograph the moon. And not just the moon, but a landscape with the moon. I will say right away that the task is not easy. But the result can be very, very interesting. It's worth working for. First, let's decide when is the best time to shoot. Of course everyone has seen the different phases of the moon. Such crescents, with different widths of the illuminated part. Every day the crescents become wider and wider, until finally the full moon arrives.
Oh, these full moon days! Poetic time! I want to read poetry, fall in love, and compliment girls. But this time we won’t do any of that. Because we're going to shoot a landscape with the moon. Although you can take the girl with you. It will not only inspire you, but will also serve as a detail in the frame, a foreground element.
The full moon is important for us for another reason. The point is that you need to shoot a landscape with the moon during moonrise. Those. when the moon just appears above the horizon.
Firstly, at this time the brightness of the lunar disk is relatively low. It is quite comparable with the brightness of the foreground, with the details of our future landscape. In other words, all elements of our photo will be displayed adequately and will not require any special post-processing in Photoshop.
Secondly, while the moon is not high above the horizon, it is easily composed in the landscape, in other words, it is adequately combined with the ground details of the foreground of our future photo.
But keep in mind - the moon rises very quickly above the horizon. Therefore, shooting time is very limited. About 30 minutes. But don’t rush to send the model girl to the starting position. A little more astronomy.
It is important to know that the time of moonrise is not constant. Each subsequent lunar rising moves forward in time by 20-40 minutes. Here, watch her. And you will see that the moon during its month can rise in the morning, during the day and at night.
On full moon days, the time of its rising is very close to the time of sunset. Poetically speaking, full moon days are the time when the sun seems to meet the moon. It's like they're looking at each other. Well, then the sun hurries over the horizon to rest. And the moon remains the main one in the sky.
Here is another very important astronomical subtlety. Two days before the full moon, our night luminary rises before sunset. A few minutes apart. In two days, its sunrise will be after sunset, at the end of twilight, almost in darkness.
Therefore, these two days before the full moon are very important to you and me as photographers. They are the ideal time for shooting a landscape with the moon.
Let's imagine the lunar month as a series of days characterizing some specific phase. In this case, the day of the full moon will be the 15th day of the lunar month. And the optimal time for shooting our landscape will be the 13th and 14th days of the lunar month. True, these days the illumination of the lunar disk is not entirely complete, somewhere around 98-99%, but visually this is almost imperceptible.
Write down these dates in your diary, because by going to shoot the sunset on the 13th and 14th lunar days, you will be able to photograph not only the usual sunset, but also the moonrise. It will be enough just to turn around with the camera in the opposite direction.
Another important feature. The moon rises above the horizon in the same place where the sun rises in the morning - in the east. In summer, the sunrise location shifts slightly to the south, and in winter to the north.
Therefore, it will be extremely useful if you decide in advance where you will shoot. Choose a location for future shooting in advance.
The ideal place is where there is an open horizon in the east and southeast direction. It’s good if there is a large expanse of water, then there is a chance to include a beautiful lunar path in the frame.
No open horizon? Then look in the city for beautiful wrought iron grilles, domes, and other architectural forms for the foreground. Perhaps just ordinary residential buildings in which the lights are already on. It would be nice to climb up to the ninth floor. Then the horizon will immediately appear, if it was not there before.
You can also try to photograph the moon over factory chimneys, or waste heaps, if you have something like that in the city. Or, for example, mountains, this is generally an ideal place for such photography.
Well, if you decide to film the moonrise in the field, then I highly recommend finding a shooting point near a hill (elevation), or on the hill itself. In order to change the shooting point from the top to the lower one as the moon rises above the horizon.
Now it remains to clarify when these 13th and 14th lunar days, most favorable for photography, arrive. Everything is very simple here. There are enough resources on the Internet where this data is available.
For example website RP 5, where in addition to the weather forecast, there is data on the time of sunrise and sunset of the sun and moon, as well as information in what phase the moon is on a given day.
Or type the phrase “lunar calendar” into a search engine and you can also find out the current lunar day. There are also specialized resources where, in addition to sunrise and sunset times, there is data on the exact direction of sunrise for a specific location.
Now about the shooting technique. A long lens on your DSLR is highly desirable. The longer the better. In order to convey the moon as large as possible.
The lens aperture in this case is not so important. Because we still have to close the aperture somewhat. Exactly how much will depend on the presence of the foreground in the frame.
Already at a focal length of 200 mm for a camera with a cropped matrix, the lunar disk is rendered quite large. But with lenses with a focal length of 300 or 500 mm, the results can be even more interesting.
If you don’t have such a lens, then shoot with what you have, and don’t worry too much about it. Because your imagination and your perseverance will be able to overcome any technical inconsistencies or lags. And it is not at all necessary to fit the moon into the entire frame.
Remember, for example, Kuindzhi’s painting “Moonlit Night on the Dnieper”. There may be a lot of options for the layout of the future photo. A tripod for such shooting is very, very desirable, and in some cases simply necessary.
It is very important not to overexpose the lunar disk, so that the characteristic pattern and relief of its surface are not lost. Therefore, when photographing in one of the semi-automatic modes, be sure to set negative exposure compensation in the camera settings, for example -0.7 or -1.0. This will prevent possible loss of detail in the highlights.
Let's consider the option of shooting a lunar landscape using one of my photographs as an example. The shooting day was chosen according to the calendar. It was the 14th lunar day, that is, one day before the full moon. The moon rose at the same time as the sun set.
The shooting took place on the banks of the Dnieper, from a high, steep bank. The width of the river in this place is about 500 m. The shooting mode is aperture priority. Exposure compensation -1.3EV. The focal length of the lens is 65 mm.
It was not possible to use a longer focus. Because then it would be impossible to include interesting foreground details in the frame.
The manual exposure mode is very useful when shooting at dusk. It is more flexible than semi-automatic modes. And the correct exposure can be monitored using the monitor and histogram. It is advisable to shoot in RAW format. This will allow you to correct inaccuracies in exposure later.
I wish you to find new ones, interesting ideas for shooting scenes with the moon. And if you have any questions, write and ask, I’m always ready to help.
The question of how to photograph the Moon is not as simple as it initially seems. It doesn’t matter whether you photograph the Moon with a DSLR, a system camera or a point-and-shoot camera, in reality it is very often impossible to obtain any acceptable result. In this material we will look at how to photograph the Moon and avoid common mistakes.
The question of how to photograph the Moon is not as simple as it initially seems. It doesn’t matter whether you photograph the Moon with a DSLR, a system camera or a point-and-shoot camera, in reality it is very often impossible to obtain any acceptable result. In this material we will look at how to photograph the Moon and avoid common mistakes.
First, let's look at which typical mistakes a photographer comes across who wants to photograph the Moon. Perhaps the first difficulty for a photographer is choosing the right exposure pair, that is, the ratio of aperture and shutter speed. Some novice photographers try to shoot the Moon with a long shutter speed and low ISO, while others try to shoot in aperture priority mode or program mode. In both cases, the results of photographing the Moon are disappointing: in the first case, you get a blurry “something” instead of the lunar disk (do not forget that at long exposures the camera is firmly fixed, and the Moon moves across the sky), and in the second we have an overexposed white circle, devoid of any - details.
So, how to properly photograph the Moon? Well, let's try to consider this issue in more detail and try to determine the algorithm of actions and technical means, which we will need for this kind of shooting.
First, let’s dispel the popular myth among photographers that you can only photograph the moon well with a tripod. Of course, a tripod can be a useful addition, but you can do without it. The only consideration when photographing the moon close up may be to have a long lens. In principle, the minimum focal length for photographing the lunar disk can be considered 300 mm. By the way, you can photograph the Moon not only with a DSLR or a system camera with interchangeable optics, but also with ultrasound, and the result with a competent approach will also be very impressive.
In order to photograph the Moon and not overexpose the frame, it is worth remembering that the night star is in practice a much brighter object than we think. This illusion of relatively low brightness “deceives” not only the human eye, but also the camera’s automation, which, when shooting in aperture priority mode or program mode, sets the shutter speed too long. For this reason, when shooting, try to set the shutter speed manually, using spot metering on the lunar disk, or, using aperture priority mode, feel free to set the “minus” exposure compensation by one and a half to two steps. In this case, you should shoot in RAW mode and then, when processing in a converter, further reduce the brightness of the highlights. This is the only way to “stretch out” the texture of the lunar disk. So, let's figure out step by step how to take pictures and set up the camera (now we will talk about photographing the Moon close-up, and not a night landscape):
As you can see, photographing the Moon at night is not a very difficult task, but it requires a somewhat specific approach. When using a film camera, the situation is complicated by the inability to view the resulting frame in advance and make adjustments, if necessary. Here we can advise one thing - when photographing the Moon on film, take several “sighting” pictures in advance using digital ones. However, with proper experience in this type of filming, you will no longer need this. We hope this short material will help you avoid mistakes when shooting the Moon and allow you to take more interesting shots.
I saw a discussion about a photograph in which the silhouette of a cyclist was shot against the backdrop of a large moon. Many commentators thought that this was editing (it is incorrect to think that “editing” and “Photoshop” are synonyms). I'll tell you how to take such a picture and why this effect is obtained.
It's simple. Long-focus optics were used to photograph the large moon. The original post described that a double teleconverter was attached to the 800 mm lens, resulting in a focal length of 1600 mm. What does this give? Let me explain with simple diagrams.
A wide-angle lens differs from a long-angle lens in its viewing angle. So, the new Canon EF 24-70 2.8L II has a viewing angle of 84 at 24 millimeters of focal length (with a camera like Canon 5D Mark III), and 34.3 degrees at 70 millimeters (59.1 and 22 degrees on cropped cameras like Canon 100D-70D, respectively). That is, your camera looks at the world like this:
Changing focal length You also change the angular sizes of objects in the frame in the photo.
Let's say we need to photograph a ball with a cube. The distance between the ball itself and the cube does not change - they stand in a clearing. To ensure that the ball takes up most of the frame with a wide-angle lens, we will get as close to it as possible. What happens to the cube? In the picture (on the right) it turns out to be much smaller than the ball:
If we put a long lens on the camera, we will have to move further away - the ball will not fit into the frame at close range, because the viewing angle of a telephoto is much smaller:
To be precise, for the 800mm Canon EF 800mm f/5.6L IS USM, which was used to take the photo of the cyclist, it is 3.1 degrees (!) on a camera like the Canon 5D Mark III.
And since you move further away, the angular sizes of objects in the frame... will also change! The object that was further away will look larger in the photo, and the further you move away, the larger the cube will appear relative to the ball. Even an interesting effect is possible here: if the cube is initially larger than the ball, then when shooting with a wide-angle lens it will appear much smaller than the ball, and when shooting with a long-angle lens it will appear larger and will protrude beyond its edges!
Now about practice. To photograph a large moon, you will need a long lens, with which you need to move as far away from the object you want to photograph against the background of the satellite. On a DSLR you can get an inexpensive 70-300. And if you attach a two-time inexpensive teleconverter to the 70-300, take a camera with a cropped sensor, then you will get 300x2x1.6 = 960 millimeters of focal length. Move a sufficient distance away, install the camera on a tripod, point at the subject and the moon, set it up and . And of course, don’t forget to select the object that is needed in the frame “for scale” - it could be a building, a car or something else.
Another point worth considering is that the moon is usually visible at night, which means we don’t have enough light. It would seem, what needs to be done? Increase the shutter speed so as not to raise the ISO, especially since 70-300 lenses, and even with a teleconverter, are very dark. But this is wrong - the moon moves across the sky and it is impossible to photograph it with a shutter speed of several minutes, because it will be smeared, like cars and moving people are smeared. With a focal length of about 1000-1500 millimeters, the shutter speed should not be longer than 0.5 seconds; when photographing at 300 millimeters, you can increase the shutter speed to two or three seconds, but no more. This means that in order to ensure such a shutter speed with the existing aperture, you will have to raise the ISO. How much? Look at the situation digital cameras allow you to deal with this quickly.
There is a third nuance. The moon reflects the light of the sun very strongly. Getting a properly exposed moon and a beautiful sky with clouds or stars at the same time is not so easy. Here you can resort to collaging - shoot the moon with one shutter speed, and clouds and stars with other settings, and then put everything together in Photoshop. Still, as I have said many times, .
The last nuance: the moon low above the horizon appears several times larger than when it is high in the sky and it is advantageous to shoot it at such a moment. This phenomenon is well described in Wiki. However, it says almost nothing about atmospheric lenses, and the moon does not appear very large every day.
Something like this. I tried to explain it as simply as possible, I hope it worked. By the way, my wonderful friend and seasoned photography expert spoke well about the effect of focal length on perspective podakuni in our series of articles “How to take photographs with a mirrorless camera” on THG.ru. For those who have not read it, I recommend it - there is a lot of educational information and theoretical foundations that can be applied when shooting with any camera.
To sum it up. This is undoubtedly a montage:
Judging by the perspective, to get such a picture of the girl, you would have to use a wide-angle lens and shoot close. The moon in such a photograph would look like this:
Here is an example of shooting the sun at sunset. I photographed this on the way to Rybinsk:
EXIF is saved in the image, you can see the shooting parameters yourself. I did not change the size of the sun in Photoshop.
Of course, in such photographs some kind of processing is often used - the same increase in contrast, for example, to make the photo more dramatic, playing with white balance. But do not confuse processing, retouching and collaging - any of these concepts fits into “Photoshop”, but these are fundamentally different things.
Night is not the best best time for photography. But even at night you can find an interesting subject to photograph. There is such a concept - astrophotography, which means shooting celestial objects. A good option for this is the Moon.
So, we will need: a camera (preferably a SLR, with interchangeable lenses), a clear starry sky, a lens with the maximum possible focusing distance, a very firmly fixed tripod, and of course the subject itself :-)
It is better to photograph the Moon late in the evening, but not at night. If you manage to catch a time when the sky is still blue, then the frame will turn out with a rich blue color of the sky. If you are shooting from open window, and it’s quite cool outside, the shot may not work. Rising air currents will greatly reduce sharpness, so it’s still better to go outside.
The shooting technique is quite simple. We install the camera on a tripod. Since the resolution of lenses toward the center is better than at the edges, we place the moon in the center of the frame. We include the spot size of the exposure on the Moon itself.
It is better to shoot celestial objects in RAW format; the white balance can be set later in the converter. You need to be careful with your shutter speed; the moon moves quite quickly across the sky. To prevent it from being too short, you need to set the ISO to around 400 units and the aperture to about F8. And the camera will select the shutter speed itself.
There is such a problem: when shooting objects with a long focal length, even the slightest vibrations on the camera will very noticeably affect the resulting frame. Therefore, it is recommended in such cases to use a cable release or remote control. If the camera does not provide such functions, then you can simply use the shutter delay. When shooting the moon, if the camera is on a tripod, it is better to turn off the stabilizer, because it can only do harm.
When shooting with a large zoom and a long focal length, the image resolution may not be very high. Don’t be upset if the quality of the picture is not suitable for printing; it may be quite suitable for publication on a blog on the Internet or for printing in a magazine. Photographing the moon will allow you to gain invaluable experience in shooting various objects from a tripod in low light. The specifics of shooting objects on the ground in low light conditions are exactly the same.
lunar tricks
lunar tricks
lunar tricks
Photographing the moon is not as easy as it seems at first glance. This article covers composition techniques, camera settings, and lighting tips for photographing the moon.
The moon is a rather treacherous object for photography. It turns out to be brighter than you originally thought, forcing you to tinker with the exposure. And instead of the huge impressive disk that we picture in our imagination, we get a small point of light that delivers nothing but disappointment.
There is a misconception that lunar photography requires expensive equipment. Yes, you can spend thousands of dollars on long lenses, but it's also true that you can get fantastic results using the gear you already have.
By mastering the tips in this article, you can learn how to photograph the moon as well as the professionals, thereby obtaining excellent results, regardless of your experience and budget.
Since the Moon revolves around the Earth, sunlight hits it at different angles and as a result we get different phases of the Moon, or, more simply, different appearance of the Moon.
Knowing the phases of the moon is very useful when photographing it
The moon looks and feels different in different phases. The full moon is the brightest, but it appears quite "flat" because the light hits it from the front. The moon between the first quarter and full moon, as well as the quarter moon, are of greatest interest because During these phases, side lighting falls on the moon, which creates shadows, thereby allowing craters and mountains to be shown on the lunar surface. The crescent moon, the darkest of all phases, helps highlight the dullness and dullness of the night sky.
The best time to photograph the moon is at dusk, just before dawn or just after sunset, when the moon is close to the horizon. At this time of day, the sky is illuminated with a faint residual light, which allows you to highlight surrounding details and add interesting colors to the sky and clouds, thereby creating a mysterious atmosphere.
Photograph the moon at dusk to create atmosphere.
Arrive early to prepare and set appropriate settings, as light levels change rapidly during this time. Different phases of the moon produce the best photos in different light levels, so take as many shots as possible during twilight to increase your chances of getting a killer photo.
Try shooting at night to get photos of the moon clearly defined against a pitch-black sky, especially when using long lenses. The moon is also visible during the day, although not as clearly, in which case it acts more as an addition than as the main subject of the photo.
A good practice is to use a lunar calculator to determine the correct phase of the moon and its rising and setting times.
If you can afford a long telephoto lens, you can undoubtedly get fantastic, detailed photos of the moon. You will need the longest lens you have. 300 mm is the minimum distance, preferably 800 mm or more.
To detail the lunar surface, you will need a long lens.
Most digital SLR cameras have a crop sensor. This means that your effective focal length will be longer than on a full-frame sensor. Read more about the crop factor in the article.
To save money, you can combine several telephoto lenses into one. For example, using two 2x teleconverters and a 200mm lens, you can get an effective focal length of 800mm. The quality of the picture, of course, will decrease, but it’s better than shooting with a standard lens.
Don't despair if you don't have the money for a long lens - there's good news. You can get great photos with any lens, even a wide-angle one, as long as you create the appropriate composition.
Use foreground objects to add context.
Instead of treating the moon as the main subject of the photo, place some objects in the foreground to create an interesting scene. Photographing the moon through grass or mountain silhouettes adds atmosphere, so short lenses won't be a disadvantage.
However, this technique has a drawback. Very often it is almost impossible to get both the moon and the foreground to be well exposed. If you have any doubts about exposure, it is better to underexpose the foreground than to overexpose the moon. Ultimately, you can take two frames - one with the moon correctly exposed and one with the foreground correctly exposed - and then combine them in Photoshop.
Luna is very sensitive to camera shake, especially when using long lenses. The slightest movement can cause a blurry frame. Therefore, it is important to minimize vibrations. For this.
Use a tripod. A stable tripod is essential. By itself, it will almost completely reduce camera shake and protect against external interference such as wind.
Use a remote release. Use a trigger cord or remote control to eliminate the judder caused by pressing the shutter button. If you don't have these tools, use a release timer to achieve the same effect.
Use mirror lockup. Even the movement of the camera mirror can blur the photo. The mirror lockup retracts the mirror before you take a photo. If your camera has this setting, use it for extra clarity.
One of the fundamental and most difficult things about photographing the moon is choosing the right settings. A consequence of the huge variety of shooting conditions is the impossibility of defining any universal settings. However, there is a regulated tuning process that must be followed.
Manual shooting mode. The automatic mode will not cope with a bright moon in a dark sky, so you need to switch to manual mode. You should start selecting parameters with an aperture of f/11, the lowest ISO value (say, ISO 100) and a shutter speed of 1/250 sec. Use autofocus to focus on the moon, then set the focus mode to manual to lock the focus.
Experiment. Take a test shot and view it on the camera screen, zooming in to assess detail and exposure. Adjust the settings according to what you see and repeat the process. When using very long lenses, try not to set the shutter speed longer than? sec to avoid smearing. When using wide angle lenses You can set much longer shutter speeds.
Use bracketing. Using bracketing can serve you well. This means that even if you didn’t get the settings right, you might still have at least one photo that can be pulled out in graphic editors.
To make your photos look the way you imagine them in your imagination, you can use image editors. For example, you can combine multiple images so that both the moon and the foreground are properly exposed, or even increase the size of the moon for the perfect composition.
The use of graphic editors is a very controversial thing, but sometimes the result exceeds all expectations. This image combines two different images with different exposures.
This question gives rise to two opposing camps, one of which insists that photographs should undergo minimal or no digital processing. However, even professional photographers sometimes they are guilty of this, and, without a doubt, sometimes the result is simply breathtaking. Which camp to join is everyone’s personal choice.
Moon photography is a bit of a challenge to your abilities and skills, and the reward for this challenge is a great photo. It is a process that needs to be learned and perfected. And once you master it, you'll get countless stunning photos.
