157 Shooting the Moon with Kirk Keyes

Introduction –

• Why I like photographing the Moon.
• You can shoot the Moon nearly any day of the month…

Equipment –

• Cameras – want a camera with manual settings and interchangeable lenses.
  • Most any camera from the last 5 or even 10 years will work.
• Lenses – Any lens will do.
  • The focal length choice determines how large the Moon will appear in the final image.
  • Unlike MW photography, Fast lenses are not needed.
  • Super telephotos can give awesome results.
• Teleconverters – extend the view of your lenses. But sometimes not as sharp
• Tripods – Sturdy!!! Especially for long lenses.
• Tripod Head – 3 Way or Tilt/Pan heads are the best choices.
  • Ball heads are often too wobbly and finicky to get set up, especially for long lenses.
• Cable Release / Intervalometer – great with shorter lenses, indispensable with long lenses.
• Filters – Polarizers – add saturation to sky at the right times – quarter Moons.
• Lens Hoods/ Dew Heaters – useful when shooting into the night.
• Star Tracker – super helpful for long lenses, especially when zoomed way in on the Moon.
  • Help Maintain your Framing.

Basic Camera Settings –

• RAW – Probably the Most Important setting of all!
• Manual Exposure Mode –
  • The Meter can be fooled by bright Moon surrounded by a dark foreground/background.
• Auto Focus – Generally OFF
  • But may use it on some occasions.
• Live View – helps preview your exposures.
• Live View Settings Effects – ON
• Blinkies/Zebras – Warns of overexposure.

Basics of Exposure –

• The one that achieves the desired effect of your photographic intent.

Several concepts that can help us make better images – for all our photography.

Dynamic Range –

• How much exposure your camera sensor (or film) can handle and still record useful detail.

Digital Camera Exposure –

• Only two exposure settings determine how much light is captured for exposure –
• shutter speed and aperture.
• ISO is internal to the camera – think of it as a “gain” or Volume setting.

Scene Luminance – may be determined by the landscape, the Moon, or both combined.

• Generally want to match the camera exposure to the scene luminance.
• But – Shortly after sunset – the Moon can be much brighter than the landscape. Creates a large luminance range – high contrast situation.
• Art – so we may make adjustments that are not literal representations of the scene in front of us.

Exposure Latitude –

• Related to dynamic range, but it’s the amount a sensor can be over or underexposed and still yield and acceptable image.
• Most sensors can’t handle too much overexposure, but some sensors, like ISO-invariant ones, can handle some under exposure – up to several stops.

• Be more than familiar with it – Know it – know it intuitively.
• Use it to visualize the relationship between changing shutter speed, aperture, and ISO.

• Program vs Shutter Speed vs Aperture vs Manual 
• Want to use Manual, generally.
• There are times when Shutter and Aperture are good choices
  • Like for controlling Motion when hand holding
  • Need to Maintain Depth of Field in changing light. – think timelapses
• Determine Exposure Settings –
• Since the Moon is always moving, I take the following approach:
• Shutter Speed – Determine this first, as I use it to control the sharpness of the Moon.
• Aperture – Control the Depth of Field
• ISO – I use it to set the overall exposure of the image.

Determining Shutter Speeds –

• Generally, we want sharp images of the Moon.
• Use shutter speed to control the Moon’s motion.
• Longer focal-length lenses require shorter exposure times than shorter lenses.
• How to Calculate Shutter Speeds –
• 500 Rule –
  • Antiquated, designed for photographing stars on film.
  • Exposure time in seconds = 500/focal length.
• 500 rule variations
  • For sharper images and crop factors.
  • 600, 400, 300 250 Rule

• Designed for photographing the Moon with a telephoto lens.
• Exposure time in seconds = 4/focal length.
• Much shorter than the 500 rule,
• But may give shorter times than truly needed.

• For sharp stars –
• Complicated to calculate,
• Use an app like PhotoPills Sharp Stars pill.

• Calculates overall exposure for the Moon for detail on the Moon’s surface.
• Shutter Speed, in seconds, equals the ratio of 1/ISO at f/11.
  • Set your ISO
  • Set the Aperture to f/11
  • Shutter Speed is 1/ISO
  • So at ISO 100, you’d use f/11 and 1/100th second.

• Little detail is visible on the Moon.
• Since there is little detail, longer shutter speeds can be used
• Up to 30 seconds or longer
• Longer exposures can be used for special effects – Moon Trails
• Use Bulb setting or external timer for longer exposures.

• Not as much detail is visible with a normal/short telephoto.
• Shutter speed doesn’t need to be as short as for telephotos.
• No longer than around one second generally.

• Lots of detail visible on the Moon
• Longer Lenses need shorter shutter speeds to capture this detail
• Often around 1/100th of a second

The Motion of the Moon –

• 29.5 days to orbit the Earth.
• The Moon moves eastward almost 15 degrees across the sky each day,
• Rises about 50 minutes later each day,
• And at mid-latitudes – it sets just over 12 hours after it rises.

• As the Moon orbits the Earth – the phases change
• New to Crescent,
• Quarter,
• Gibbous,
• Full,
• Gibbous,
• Quarter,
• Crescent,
• and back to New.
• Waxing – as it goes from New to Full
  • meaning it increases in size.
• Waning – as it goes from Full to New,
  • meaning it decreases in size.
• It takes about a week for the Moon to move from New to Waxing Quarter,
  • one week from Quarter to Full,
  • one week from Full to Waning Quarter,
  • and another week back to New.

• Moon follows a path that is tied to the Sun.
  • Imagine a stick that runs from the Moon, through the Earth, and then out to the Sun.
• When the Moon is New, it’s near the sun’s position in the sky, and it’s usually within 5 degrees away.
• The Full Moon will always be in the opposite part of the sky from where the Sun is setting. 

In the Northern hemisphere

• During Winter,
  • the Sun sets in the SW, the Crescent Moon will also be in the SW,
  • Full Moon will rise in the NE.
• Spring and Fall,
  • the Sun sets in the West and rises in the East.
  • The Crescent Moon and Full Moon will follow that pattern as well.
• In the Summer,
  • the Sun sets in the NW, so Crescent Moons will be near the Sun in the NW.
  • Full Moons rise in the SE.
• For the southern hemisphere,
  • swap all the norths with souths and souths with norths.
  • East and West are still the same.
• After you get used to these concepts, you’ll be able to roughly predict where and when the Moon rise, and sets will occur and in which direction.
• This is especially true if you see the Moon the day before, you should be able to determine where the Moon will generally be the next day or so.
• And of course, there are apps for that!
• PlanIt Pro for Photographers, PhotoPills, and Photographers Ephemeris

Best Times to Shoot –

Crescents –

• Capture them within a few days after New and a few days after Last Quarter (that is before the New Moon)
• After New Moon – thin crescents set between one to two hours after sunset.
• Before New Moon, they rise within an hour or two before sunrise.
• Look for Earthshine. It’s light reflecting off Earth and onto the shade side of the Moon.
• Don’t sweat overexposing the sunlit part. Go for detail in the shadow part of the Moon.
• Age of the Moon – measured in hours. Takes about 20-24 hours old until visible.
  • Record for naked eye is 15h 32m,
  • Binoculars 11h 40m at 7.5 degrees from the sun.
  • Telescope record – 4.4 degrees.
  • Winter and Spring for the northern hemisphere is best time to spot young crescents after the new moon (in the evening) –  due to the angle of Earth’s orbit.
  • Summer and Fall for before New Moon (in mornings).

• Waxing – Rise about Noon and set around Midnight.
• Waning – Rise around Midnight and set at Noon.
• Often not impressive as they rise during the day
• Washed out by sunlight and atmospheric haze,
• but they can look awesome as they set.

• Rise near sunset
• Set near sunrise.
• They are low in contrast and look somewhat flat.
• They can often look better when photographed one, or even two days, before they are Full.
  • The exact time a Moon is Full can vary throughout the day. You look on a calendar and it says today is the Full Moon, well it could have happened at 12:01 AM or 11:59 PM.
  • So when trying to shoot the full Moon – you might want to check and determine if one or maybe two days before are going to be better.
  • Ideally, check an planning app and see what time the Moon rise is relative to the Sunset
• Look for times when the Moon rises sometime just before or just after sunset.
  • Too early before, and the Moon gets washed out in the atmospheric haze
  • I like it best when the Moon rises with the Belt of Venus – the purple-pink color in the sky that appears a few minutes after sunset.
• The day after full then can be too bright against the dark landscape.

• Only about 7% larger than an average Full Moon.
• There are also “micro” Moons that are about 7% smaller than average,
• Micromoon is about 14% less than a Super Moon.
• It’s nothing you’d really notice if someone hadn’t told you it was a super Moon….
• But there is a 30% difference in brightness between the super and micro moon.
• But it’s not enough to cause one to change exposure settings.

• Optical illusion.
• Actually the same size
• Moon Illusion if you want to investigate that fascinating effect!

Compositions

• or Rule of 4th to get less landscape and more sky.
• Invite Brent talk more about this!

Tips for shooting

• Stable Tripod –
  • Solid ground,
  • Tripod spikes,
  • Don’t stand near tripod feet when shooting on some soils
• Weight your Tripod – rock bag
• Weight your Camera –
  • I use two 2.5 lb ankle weights around my 200-600mm lens to add mass to it.
• Lens support – Use a lens bracket
  • One kind connect to camera and then supports the end of the lens
  • Another connects between camera body and lens foot
• Remote release              

• Daylight hours – use an exposure suitable for the scene.
  • You’ll typically capture detail on the Moon;s surface with longer lenses during the daytime and into the blue hour with this approach.
  • use your camera meter and histogram.
• If after sunset –
  • use histogram and blinkies.
  • Make sure Moon doesn’t get too bright.
  • Underexpose if needed – know your camera’s dynamic range
  • My Sony can handle about one stop of overexposure for when the Moon has activated the blinkies
  • But it can recover about 3 stops of underexposure in the shadows without too much issues.
• More than about 30 minutes after sunset –
  • The Moon will overpower the landscape with natural lighting
  • Either shoot for the Moon and let the land fall where it may
  • Composite/HDR – but be careful – easy to look fake.
• Solitary Moon in the sky – higher than 15 or 20 degrees.
  • Start with Looney 11 Rule –
  • It generally gets you close
  • You can still make adjustments from the Looney 11 setting as needed
• Check your histogram, and don’t trust your LCD.
• Look closely at the histogram – 
• If the Moon is small, it may be a blip on the histogram compared to all the black sky.
• Atmosphere
  • Moon is about 4-5 stops dimmer when low on the horizon.
  • It increases in brightness as it climbs over the next hour or so.
  • Smoke, Haze, Humidity all decrease the brightness of the Moon.