How to shoot a big moon. How to shoot the moon

I saw a discussion of a photograph in which the silhouette of a cyclist was shot against the backdrop of a large moon. Many commentators considered it to be a montage (it is incorrect to assume that "montage" and "Photoshop" are synonyms). I'll tell you how to take such a picture and why this effect is obtained.

Everything is simple. For shooting a large moon, long-focus optics were used. The original post described that a 2x teleconverter was screwed to the 800mm lens, resulting in a 1600mm focal length. What does it give? Let's explain with simple diagrams.

A wide-angle lens differs from a long-focus lens in its field of view. So the new Canon EF 24-70 2.8L II has an angle of view at 24 millimeters of focal length (with a camera like Canon 5D Mark III) is 84, and at 70 millimeters - 34.3 degrees (59.1 and 22 degrees on cropped cameras like Canon 100D-70D, respectively). That is, your camera looks at the world like this:

By changing the focal length, you change the angular dimensions of objects in the frame in the picture.

Let's say we need to take a picture of a ball with a cube. The distance between the ball itself and the cube does not change with us - they are standing in a clearing. In order for the ball to take up most of the frame with a wide-angle lens, we will approach it as close as possible. What happens with the cube? It in the picture (on the right) turns out to be much smaller than the ball:

If we put a long-focus lens on the camera, then we will have to move away - the ball will not fit into the frame at close range, because the viewing angle of the "telephoto" is much smaller:

To be precise, the 800mm Canon EF 800mm f/5.6L IS USM that shot the cyclist has 3.1 degrees (!) on a camera like the Canon 5D Mark III.

And once you move further away, the angular dimensions of the objects in the frame... will also change! The object that was further away will look larger in the picture, and the further you move away, the larger the cube will appear relative to the ball. An interesting effect is even possible here: if the cube is initially larger than the ball, then when shooting with a wide-angle lens, it will seem much smaller than the ball, and when shooting with a long-focus lens, it will be larger and will protrude beyond its edges!

Now about practice. To shoot a large moon, you need a long lens, with which you need to move away from the subject that you wanted to photograph against the background of the satellite, as far as possible. On a SLR, you can take an inexpensive 70-300. And if you screw a two-fold inexpensive teleconverter to the 70-300, take a camera with a cropped sensor, then you will get 300x2x1.6=960 millimeters of focal length. Get a good distance away, mount your camera on a tripod, aim at the subject and the moon, set up and . And of course, don't forget to select the object you need in the frame "for scale" - it can be a building, a car or something else.

It is worth considering one more thing - the moon is usually visible at night, which means we have little light. It would seem that in this case it is necessary to do? Increase the shutter speed so as not to bully the ISO, especially the 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 an exposure of several minutes, because it will be smeared, just 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 available aperture, you will have to raise the ISO. How much? Look at the situation digital cameras allow you to deal with it 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 easy. Here you can already resort to collage - shoot the moon with one shutter speed, and clouds and stars with other settings, and then add everything in Photoshop. Yet, as I have said many times, .

The last nuance: the moon low above the horizon seems to be 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, there is almost nothing about atmospheric lenses, and the moon does not seem very large every day.

It's somewhere like this. I tried to explain as simply as possible, I hope it worked out. By the way, my wonderful friend and hardened specialist in photography spoke well about the effect of focal length on perspective podakuni in our series of articles "How to take pictures with a mirrorless camera" on THG.ru. For those who have not read, I recommend - there is a lot of educational program and theoretical foundations, which can be applied when shooting with any camera.

Summarizing. This is definitely a montage:

Judging by the perspective, to get such a shot of a girl, you would have to use a wide-angle lens and shoot close. The moon in such a photograph would have to look like this:

And here is an example of shooting the sun at sunset. I photographed this on the way to Rybinsk:

EXIF on the picture is saved, you can see the shooting parameters yourself. The size of the sun in Photoshop did not change.

Of course, some kind of processing is often used in such pictures - the same increase in contrast, for example, to make the picture more dramatic, playing with white balance. But do not confuse processing, retouching and collage - any of these concepts fit into "photoshop", but these are fundamentally different things.

David Noton, renowned landscape photographer and Canon Ambassador shares how to capture the longest lunar eclipse of this century.

On Friday, July 27, 2018, the longest lunar eclipse of this century awaits us, during which the Moon will turn blood red. This astronomical event will last for a total of 1 hour 43 minutes, starting from sunset and moonrise over Europe.

A lunar eclipse is a phenomenon when the Earth blocks the sunlight and the Moon is in its shadow. The moon will turn red due to an effect known as Rayleigh scattering (also called elastic scattering), where green and purple waves are sort of filtered out in the atmosphere.

It will be possible to see the "bloody" Moon from different parts of the continent, but in southeastern Europe the phenomenon will be longer, since there the satellite will be higher in the sky during the eclipse.

Canon Ambassador and acclaimed landscape photographer David Noughton shares five tips to help you capture this rare and unusual phenomenon.

Download dedicated apps

The position of the Sun in the sky at a certain time of the day depends only on the latitude of the point of observation and the time of year. However, with the Moon, things are somewhat different - its apparent movement across the sky is determined by the complex elliptical orbit of the Earth. Changes in the trajectory of the Moon's motion do not depend on the annual, but on the monthly cycle, which is why the time of the appearance of the Moon and its trajectory change so much.

Fortunately, you no longer need to fiddle with astronomical tables to calculate the movement of the moon - just download the application on your smartphone. For example, the Photographer's Ephemeris app will tell you the time of moonrise and set, its azimuths and phases; and the Photopills application provides detailed information about the position of the moon in the sky.

With the help of these two applications, I plan to shoot the "blood" moon in Dorset, England. I want to capture it in the first 15 minutes after sunrise, while it is still low in the sky - then I can capture some object on the horizon, such as a tree on a hill, to reflect the scale of a celestial body.

Use a telephoto lens

One of the main tasks that I will have to solve on July 27 is how to photograph the Moon so large that every crater on the surface riddled with asteroids is visible. Usually such problems are solved by astronomers with super-powerful telescopes. However, a telephoto lens with a focal length of about 600mm on a full-frame camera also makes for an impressive shot. I will be shooting with a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV with an EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Ext. 1.4x.

Use a tripod

When choosing a frame, you will find that the Moon moves across the sky at an unexpected speed and it is surprisingly difficult to follow it through the lens. Since you will be using a long focal length lens, it is important to choose a stable tripod from which you can get the best possible shots. If you want to shoot handheld, keep in mind that the subject is located more than 384,000 kilometers away from you, and even with a fast shutter speed, the slightest movement will ruin the frame.

Fit the moon into the landscape

Don't forget composition. While detailed close-up shots of the Moon can be beautiful, they are essentially only of astronomical value. The Moon attracts me much more when it is part of the landscape or serves as a light source when shooting. It is quite difficult to achieve the latter, since the amount of light reflected by the Moon is small and, compared with it, the lunar surface itself turns out to be very bright. Until recently, night photography inevitably required very slow shutter speeds, but the amazing light sensitivity of cameras such as the EOS-1D X Mark II and Canon EOS 5D Mark IV opened up a whole new world for photographers. new world night shooting.

Choose a shutter speed that suits your subject

The Moon looks most expressive and natural in a landscape when it is surrounded by a slightly illuminated sky. Such pictures are realistic, they are full of charm and special mood.

In any shot taken at medium or wide angles, the moon will appear as a spot of light the size of a pinhead, but its presence will still be felt. She naturally attracts the eye, even if it seems to be an insignificant detail. Of course, you will need to find the right shutter speed: if it is too fast, then even when shooting with a wide-angle lens, only an ugly blurry trace will remain in the picture.

On a clear night, a good choice of shutter speed - necessary condition to photograph the moon. A shutter speed of 1/250 s at f8 and ISO 100 (depending on the focal length) will help you avoid blurring and get a technically flawless shot. With a high-end camera like the Canon EOS 5DS R, you might even be able to see the twelve cameras that were left on the Moon by NASA astronauts in the 1960s!

About David Noughton

The author of many breathtaking landscapes and views from different parts of the world, multiple winner of the title of BBC Photographer of the Year - wildlife", David has been at the forefront of his field for more than thirty years. At age 60, he is still traveling and shooting landscapes. From Canon, he prefers the EOS 5DS R and EOS 5D Mark IV and the EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM.

Thanks for the material

The question of how to photograph the Moon is far from being as simple as it initially seems. It doesn't matter whether you photograph the Moon with a DSLR, a system camera, or a soap box, in reality, very often you cannot get any acceptable result. In this article, we will look at how to photograph the Moon and avoid common mistakes.

What errors occur when photographing the moon?

First, let's see what typical mistakes encounters a photographer who wants to photograph the moon. Perhaps the first difficulty for the photographer is the selection of the correct exposure pair, that is, the ratio of aperture and shutter speed. Some novice photographers try to shoot the moon with long exposure and low ISO, while others try to shoot in aperture priority 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 the camera is firmly fixed at a slow shutter speed, and the Moon moves across the sky), and in the second, we have an overexposed white circle, devoid of any or details.

So, what is the right way to 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 need for this kind of shooting.

What do we need to photograph the moon at night?

First, let's dispel a popular myth among photographers that you can only take a good picture of the moon with a tripod. Of course, a tripod can be a useful addition, but it is quite possible to do without it. The only aspect when shooting the moon close-up may be the presence of a telephoto lens. In principle, a value of 300 mm can be recognized as the minimum focal length for photographing the lunar disk. By the way, you can take pictures of the Moon not only with a SLR or system camera with interchangeable optics, but also with ultrasonic, 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 luminary is in practice a much brighter object than it seems to us. 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 too long a shutter speed. For this reason, when shooting, try to set the shutter speed manually, using spot metering on the lunar disk, or using the 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 the converter, further reduce the brightness of the lights. This is the only way to "stretch" the texture of the lunar disk. So, let's take a step-by-step look at how to shoot and set up the camera (now we will talk about photographing the moon close-up, not a night landscape):

Install a long-focus lens on the camera or, if using an "ultrasound", move it to the maximum focal length.
Mount the camera on a tripod (again, this is not a necessary condition, since the shutter speed when shooting is not very long, but it is desirable - nevertheless, the risk of getting a frame with "shake" will be lower). If you shoot "handheld", you can turn on the stabilizer if it is available in a digital camera.
Set the minimum sensitivity value in the camera (as practice shows, 100 ISO is quite a suitable value for photographing the moon at night).
Select RAW mode to save the captured images (of course, if your camera supports this image recording format).
Use the mode dial to set aperture priority mode (A) or manual mode (M).
Activate the exposure compensation mode by entering a negative value of 1.5-2 stops (it is optimal to use a correction of 2 "stops").
Shoot. If there are overexposures, adjust the exposure compensation value or close the aperture by one or two values. By the way, it is better to photograph the Moon with average aperture values, from 5.6 to 8.

Results:

As you can see, photographing the Moon at night is not a very difficult task, but it requires a somewhat specific approach. In the case of using a film camera, the situation is complicated by the inability to preview the resulting frame in advance and make adjustments, if necessary. Here I can advise one thing - I photograph the Moon on film, take a few "sighting" pictures in advance on the "number". However, with proper experience of this kind of filming, you will no longer need this. We hope this little material will help you avoid mistakes when shooting the Moon and allow you to take more interesting shots.

This post was written by Laura Charon. Laura is a passionate photographer. At first, she used some old camera, and more recently, a Canon 400d.

Most photographers enjoy taking pictures of the moon. The conditions are the same for everyone: a DSLR, a tripod, a timer (or a remote shutter release) and a bright moon in the sky. However, the result is often an overexposed spot on a black background. Flat disk or gray image without crater detail.

Here are some tips I can give based on my own experience shooting the moon.

1. Lune/Moon, OliBac, Flickr
Shutter Speed: 0.005 sec (1/200), Aperture: F/5, Focal Length: 84.2mm, ISO:50

So, tips:

First: Use a telephoto lens

At least 300mm if you want to fill the entire frame with the Moon. Although, in principle, the Moon can be photographed with an ordinary lens, even with a whale. A 2x converter will come in handy, it perfectly complements the lens and at the same time is quite inexpensive.

Second: Set up the camera manually

Although many digital cameras have automatic settings for night shots, manually setting the ISO, shutter speed, and aperture will result in significantly better photos. Start with ISO 100. The moon is a source of light, and brighter than you think. You can use high ISOs without fear of noise. Set your aperture to around f/11 (larger apertures will result in less sharp images). A shutter speed of 1/125 will suffice. We will call this a "rule", but you can of course experiment with the settings. Try shooting with manual focus. Cameras sometimes have problems auto focusing on the moon. Take multiple shots with different aperture and shutter speed settings.

2. "The Bird and the Moon II", Flowery Luza, Flickr
Shutter speed: 0.001 sec (1/1000), Aperture: f/4.0, Focal length: 200mm, ISO:1600

Third Tip: Don't Be Afraid of Underexposed Frames

Surely on normal settings you will get a slow shutter speed. You still take pictures at night. But in fact, such an exposure is not needed. During processing, you will get everything right, and keep in mind that the moon moves across the sky, and even at 1/15, the image may come out a little blurry.

3. "Crescent Moon", Lrargerich, Flickr
Shutter Speed: 0.008 sec (1/125), Aperture: F/4, Focal Length: 29.2mm, ISO: 125

Fourth tip: Shoot different phases of the moon

Each phase of the moon has its own mood. There will be more light during a full moon than during a waxing or aging moon. It's probably even intuitive. Also, it's great to photograph the moon at various stages of its movement. The moon appears larger at the horizon. Taking photographs early in the evening also often produces pleasing results thanks to original lighting effects.

I hope these simple tips will help you have a lot of fun photographing the moon. Despite the fact that the topic of photographing the Moon is rather hackneyed, this bright disk never ceases to arouse interest, attract the attention of our eyes and our lenses.

Original: Laura Charon, photodoto.com

High-quality photos of the moon are very beautiful, but sometimes getting clear pictures of it can be extremely difficult! To capture stunning moon shots, you need to have the right equipment and know how to set it up properly. As long as you know some basics, the moon may soon become one of your favorite subjects in your photography.

Steps

Part 1

Choosing the Right Equipment

Use a quality camera. A cell phone camera won't let you take good pictures of the moon, they will be blurry and distant. It's best to use the best quality camera you can afford. The quality of the lens is even more important than the quality of the camera itself, so many cameras will be suitable for the task, as long as the lens is suitable.

Choose a lens with a focal length of 200mm or more. A long focal length indicates that the lens is capable of bringing distant objects closer. Buy a lens with the largest focal length you can afford. It is best if the focal length is more than 300 mm, but you can get good pictures at a focal length of 200 mm.

ADVICE OF THE SPECIALIST

Photographer

"Probably don't use a lens with a focal length of less than 55mm! This will make the moon appear smaller in your photos than you would like it to be."

Be sure to use a tripod. For photographing the moon, it is important to ensure the stability of the camera. Even the slightest camera shake can result in a blurry photo, so use a tripod. Choose a tripod with adjustable legs in case you need to set it up on an uneven surface.

Part 2
Choice of time and place for photography
Part 3
Photographing the moon