Become Smaller Like The Moon

Before we start talking about how to take a picture of the moon, let's first respond some basic questions. I'm sure if y'all have already attempted to have a picture of the moon, you probably ran into a problem where the moon looks tiny in comparison to what you saw while taking the picture. Why does the moon get photographed and so much smaller? The unproblematic answer is – you are probably taking a picture of the moon with a wide-angle lens. Keep in mind that your eyes are similar a 50mm stock-still lens and if you are taking a picture show with a broad-angle lens that is shorter than 50mm, the moon volition exist captured in smaller size! So, if yous want to capture an object like a big tree or a house with the moon, you would need to stand up further away and photograph the scene at least at 50mm to endeavour to match what yous saw with your optics. And even at 50mm the moon might look smaller, especially if it was near the horizon when you took a moving picture of information technology. This also happens because of a phenomenon chosen "Moon Illusion", where the moon appears bigger to your eyes, when in fact it is non.

two) Why do I see the moon as a white blob?

If you have taken a flick of the moon later sunset and it looked in the motion picture like a white circular object rather than the moon, it is considering the moon was overexposed. When you lot take a motion-picture show of the moon with other objects around it (as in the case with a tree above), your photographic camera past default will meter, or calculate the exposure, based on everything but the moon. This happens because the moon is too pocket-sized in comparison with the objects around it and a unmarried spot of light should not impact the overall exposure of the pic. Think of it as a light seedling – if you accept a picture of a dimly lit room with a visible light bulb, the room will be exposed usually, while the light bulb will be overexposed. If the camera measured exposure on the light seedling, the room would be completely nighttime, while the light bulb is properly exposed. The same affair happens with the moon – information technology works just like the light bulb at night and it volition always be overexposed. During the day, however, this is non a problem, considering the amount of light coming from the moon would differ only slightly in comparison with the objects effectually it, including the sky. So, why exercise our eyes see everything ordinarily, while a digital camera cannot? That'southward because our eyes and our encephalon can see a much broader range of light. In photography terms, this is known every bit "dynamic range".

three) Where and when to photograph the moon

Plain, you should be taking a picture of the moon on a articulate night with no clouds in the sky. Even a thin layer of clouds will make it impossible to get a clear moving picture of the moon, and so absolutely make certain that the sky is clear. Pollution in large cities, especially in hot summer days will too play a big role, and so I recommend getting out of town and traveling to a remote location with no light or air pollution, preferably at a college superlative. The less the distance between you and the moon, the better the pictures. As for the time of the day – any time works, as long as the moon is visible.

4) Required equipment – Photographic camera and Lens

A DSLR camera with a 200mm+ telephoto lens or a point and shoot camera that has an optical zoom adequacy.

A stable tripod.

Remote camera trigger (optional). If you do not have one, a timer in your camera will also work

If yous want to enlarge the moon and bear witness the details of the moon surface, a good telephoto lens longer than 200mm is virtually required. The longer the lens, the better. If yous have a telephoto lens that can take teleconverters, I highly recommend calculation a teleconverter to increment the overall focal length. For example, a i.4x teleconverter will increase the focal length of a 300mm lens by 40% or to 420mm total, while a ii.0x teleconverter will increase the focal length of the same lens to 600mm. The just thing to continue in mind, is that teleconverters negatively impact image quality and subtract the maximum aperture of the lens, then if yous had a 300mm f/4 lens, it would essentially get a 420mm f/5.6 lens (which is non that big of a deal, because you will be using higher apertures for moon photography anyway). As the focal length is increased, photographic camera shake tin can likewise become a big problem. At long focal lengths of 300mm and above, even a slight motion tin can screw upward the picture. That's why if you are using a telephoto lens, a stable tripod is required to be able to produce a sharp image of the moon. Having a remote camera trigger also helps reduce the photographic camera shake and if you have a Mirror Lock Up (MLU) feature in your photographic camera, you can near completely eliminate all vibrations.

The best setup for moon photography is an astro-telescope with a camera mountain. Basically, you mount a digital camera to a telescope, which works as a long telephoto lens. But those setups tin get very expensive and are suited best for dedicated astrophotography.

5) How to photograph just the moon

To photo just the moon by itself, without any objects in the foreground, y'all will demand a long telephoto lens like explained above to magnify the moon and try to make full as much of the frame as possible. Fifty-fifty with a good telephoto lens setup though, you lot will most likely exist cropping the final prototype, just because simply a telescope would be able to provide plenty magnification to fill the unabridged frame. With your telephoto lens mounted in your camera, secure it on a tripod and signal at the moon. Brand sure that your tripod is expert and stable enough to adapt and hold your lens and your camera. When it comes to shutter speed, aperture and ISO, here is what I recommend for general use:

Camera Mode: Prepare your camera mode to full Transmission Mode.

ISO: Set your ISO to 100 if you lot have a Catechism DSLR and to 200 if you have a Nikon DSLR (basically, whatever base ISO you have in your photographic camera). For most other brands, the base of operations ISO is as well 100. If y'all have a signal and shoot photographic camera, see if yous tin can find a carte du jour setting to set your ISO to 100. Brand sure "Auto ISO" is turned Off.

Aperture: Set your discontinuity to f/11.

Shutter Speed: Set your shutter speed to 1/125 on cameras with base of operations ISO 100, and to ane/250 on Nikon DSLRs with base ISO 200.

Lens Focus: Set up your lens to manual focus (either through a switch on the lens or on the camera) and fix your focus to infinity. Be careful while setting the focus to infinity, every bit some lenses allow focusing beyond infinity. On more advanced DSLRs such as Nikon D300, there is a handy feature chosen "live-view with contrast find", which tin accurately acquire focus on distant objects. I have used it many times for my moon photography and it works great! If you do not take such a feature in your photographic camera, then try setting your lens to the center of the infinity sign, and so take a picture and see if it came out sharp past zooming in the rear LCD of the camera.

Crescent Moon

If it is too bright, gear up your shutter speed to a higher value. If information technology is likewise dim, fix your shutter speed to a lower value. You tin also play with aperture, but be careful, every bit irresolute the aperture to a modest number tin really soften the epitome, while increasing the aperture to a very high number would hateful slower shutter speeds. Recollect, the moon moves pretty fast, then you definitely exercise not want to be photographing it with a slow shutter speed (certainly non beneath i/100 of a 2d), peculiarly when using a long telephoto lens.

Another matter I recommend doing is bracketing your shots. When I was taking a motion picture of the total moon, I noticed that some parts of the moon came out overexposed, while other parts were underexposed. I couldn't get a perfect shot to properly betrayal all areas of the moon, so I decided to attempt taking multiple shots of the moon, and so merging them into HDR in Photoshop. To my surprise, the result turned out to exist better than expected – the showtime image in this article was washed that way. If yous do not desire to exercise an HDR of the moon, I still recommend to subclass the exposures – in worst case scenario, you will keep the best photo and delete the residual.

Lastly, for those who have long telephoto lenses longer than 400mm, you might be able to use "Aperture Priority" mode instead of "Manual", as long every bit you prepare your metering to spot metering. At 400mm and above, the moon fills enough of the frame to be able to employ modes other than transmission.

vi) How to have a picture of the moon with a foreground object?

Let'due south now motility on to how you can have a picture of the moon together with a foreground object – whether it'south a tree, a house or a large rock. As explained here, the moon will e'er expect overexposed subsequently sunset in comparison to everything else. The only way to capture the scene with the moon properly exposed, is to accept 2 separate shots of the scene – one with the foreground properly exposed and the moon overexposed and one with the moon properly exposed and the foreground objects heavily underexposed.

vii) Post-processing in Photoshop

No matter how skilful your image comes out of the photographic camera, I nevertheless recommend doing some post-processing in Photoshop to heighten the expect of your moon image.

a) Image->Adjustment->Curves and selected "Medium Dissimilarity" Preset from the drop-downward menu and clicked "OK".

b) Filter->Sharpen->Unsharp Mask and added 150% in "Amount" field, while keeping the "Radius" on one.0 pixels and "Threshold" on 0 levels.

Very simple and very quick!

eight) the moon photograph

Once you have a couple of really nice pictures of the moon, why not get even more creative by calculation clouds in Photoshop or changing the color of the moon to friction match your photograph – basically, any yous feel similar doing!

ix) Why photograph the moon?

And then, why would ane desire to photograph the moon? I was asked this question several times before and my answer is simple – because we simply accept i moon and it is cute, and so why not? The moon also makes the otherwise boring night sky look more than interesting and tin can add a sense of enigma to a moving-picture show. While photographing the moon by itself might be somewhat boring, including the moon equally an element of composition can yield great results. In improver, there are moon phases (crescent to full) that give even more than opportunities for diverse compositions. And lastly, why not experiment with something new and learn how to photograph bright objects at night? It is definitely a lot of fun, and so go out and shoot some moon pics! :

Become Smaller Like The Moon,

Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-does-moon-look-smaller-pictures-ashok-n-pulliyerengi

Posted by: newmanmunly1988.blogspot.com

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