For all you photographers, and watchers (hoping you have good weather) here is what he sent.
The largest, brightest, and closest full moon of the year is nearly upon us. It will be occurring this weekend, so gather up your camera gear, use these tips, and get out there to see if you can’t capture some great moon shots this weekend!
Full moon falls on June 23, 2013 at 6:32 a.m. CDT in the U.S. For many, the moon will appear about as full in the June 22 evening sky as it does on the evening of June 23. This full moon is not only the closest and largest full moon of the year. It also presents the moon’s closest encounter with Earth for all of 2013. The moon will not be so close again until August, 2014. So not only is this considered a “supermoon”; it’s the closest supermoon of 2013.
Last month’s full moon was also a supermoon. But the June full moon is even more super! In other words, the time of full moon falls even closer to the time of perigee, the moon’s closest point to Earth. The crest of the moon’s full phase in June 2013, and perigee, fall within an hour of each other.
Here’s a link to a site that allows you input your location and gives you the sunrise, sunset, moonrise, moon set and twilight times. I keep it bookmarked because it’s handy not just for figuring out when the moon will be rising, but also helps me with sunrise and sunset times when I’m figuring out when I need to be where for the those important “golden hour” periods when the light is at it’s best. www.sunrisesunset.com
Try to be out there and ready when the super moon is starting to rise in your area, and use elements in the landscape to help accentuate and frame the rising moon in wide shots.
We know that the full moon has lots allure, lots of mystery, and the myth that lunacy tends to increase during the period of the full moon. If you have ever felt like a lunatic out there trying repeatedly to capture a good photo of the full moon hopefully these tips will make it easier for you and give new meaning to “ shooting the moon” for you.
First – throw out any ideas you have that you are working in low light, or at night. That’s where many go wrong when attempting to photograph a full moon. The full moon actually puts out a great deal of light; thus when you attempt to use settings that correspond to low light or nighttime, you end up with an extremely over exposed white spot. None of the texture and beauty associated with the full moon.
Here are the specifics that will help to make you lunar photography escapade a little less lunatic.
Gear
• Tripod – Although it’s a quick exposure, you’ll get the best results setting your camera on a tripod. Remember that you want detail and any kind of motion blurring can ruin the shot. If you don’t have tripod, try looking for a fence post, a porch rail, any solid firm surface where you can securely rest your camera.
• Telephoto lens – Another common error that many make is failing to use a long enough focal length lens to capture the moon and render the detail vs having just a small bright spot in an otherwise dark scene. For a good moon shot you’ll need a telephoto lens. You don’t need an expensive one, but you need a lens that will at least have a 300mm focal length. The longer the focal length the better. If you are using a super zoom point and shoot check your camera documentation to see what the 35mm equivalents are for your lens. If you don’t have long focal length lens, consider using a wider angle of view t=right at moonrise, and use the moon as an attractive element in a landscape image.
• Shutter Release Cable – This one you really can fudge on, by simply using the time on your camera. The goal is to avoid any, or as much “ camera shake” as you possibly can and the accompanying motion blur in the image. The pressure of your fingers on the shutter button will increase the motion blur. To avoid this you can can use a shutter release, a remote shutter release, or use the shutter delay / timer feature of your camera. A 2 second delay is more than enough to get your hands of the camera.
Out there and shooting!
One easy way to remember what settings and how/where to start is the “Lunatic Rule” as I like to call it. Start out with F/11 at 100 ISO, and a shutter speed of 1/125 – 1/250. Remember that the Earth’s atmosphere absorbs a huge amount of the light and this initial group of settings will likely vary according to the angle of the moon above the horizon and the amount of dust, pollen and debris in the atmosphere. Farmers across southern Illinois are beginning wheat harvest right now, putting more dust into the atmosphere than usual. Not only may this mean you may have to adjust settings for your area, it also means the moon may have a more reddish, orange or golden appearance at moon rise. Remember, using a “fixed” setting does not always work in every situation, but simply gives you a starting spot. You can easily make adjustments after a quick look at the images on your LCD screen .
Get your camera securely situated on the tripod, fence post, or big rock and dial in the following settings. A note here about point and shoots – this may not be possible of your particular camera model does not offer you the ability to use what is commonly known as “manual mode” .
Start with the following settings:
• Aperture at f/11
• ISO 100 or your camera’s lowest ISO setting
• Shutter Speed of 1/125 – 1/250
Now set your autofocus to point, aim at the moon, focus and turn the autofocus off. Don’t be fiddling around with the focus once you have it set. If you prefer to manually focus – have at it, in fact some cameras with auto focus will “ hunt” and not lock on the focus very well so you might have to manually focus. Once the focus is set, there’s no need to keep fiddling with it – unless you move the camera location.
For good measure bracket your exposure one or two stops. Most of the DSLRS out there today will allow you to “auto bracket” . This a great option to use if you have it available. It will save you the trouble of shooting the image, changing the shutter speed, shooting again, and so on.
And that is really all there is to it!
After The Image Capture
Now that you have your moon photo, it’s time to work on it in post processing. Let’s clear up any misconception that I am a straight out of the camera snob kind of gal- especially since I always shoot in RAW. A great image straight out of the camera can be stellar with a few post processing tricks.
Chances are you will want to crop the photo, so that the moon will come in closer appearing and to fill the frame with more of the moon. Sometimes, this will be the only post processing needed for you to have a moon image that you are happy with and want to hang on the wall. If you want to make it even better, try playing a bit with the curves on Photoshop ( or a free program called GIMP) . You’ll probably manage to give more texture to your photo by increasing the contrast between midtones and highlights. If you use Lightroom ( my personal favorite for photo processing and cataloging) you should try fiddling a bit with the clarity, contrast, highlight, and shadow sliders, to get the desired effect.
See there….shooting the moon isn’t so lunatic after all. It’s certainly not that difficult, so get out there this weekend, enjoy the biggest and brightest full moon of the year and grab some great moon photos
= new reply since forum marked as read
. Bad Moon on the Rise by CCR is now in my head.
