Closest Supermoon
Tonight... just before dawn on the east coast... 6:22am, to be exact... our moon will be the closest to Earth tonight until we have another "supermoon" in 2034.
I had hoped to capture the moon as it rose over the mountains outside our living room. More specifically, I had hoped to capture the moon just as it was cresting over the tree lined mountain ridge, capturing crisp trees with the supermoon behind it.
I peered through the window before coming to my desk but there was no moon in the sky just yet. It wasn't even five minutes later when I heard Sheila ask from the other room, "Is the supermoon tonight?"
I immediately asked, "Is the moon over the mountains already?"
"Yup."
"Ugggg."
Then I grabbed my camera, a freshly charged battery, and my newly purchased Canon 400mm f5.6L lens. I have very little experience with this lens but I knew that this particular lens should be, by far, the best super-telephoto lens I've ever used. It should be the sharpest long lens I've ever used... and it is a physically long lens... used on the best camera I've ever used so I knew I just might capture the best full moon shot I've ever captured before.
I didn't feel like digging out my tripod (my health has been absolutely miserable for more than a week now) so I just rested my new long Canon lens on the window frame of the opened window in our living room... switched my camera to all manual mode... set my ISO to 100... set the shutter speed to 1/650th sec... set the aperture to f8... found the moon in my viewfinder... carefully focused... held my breath while keeping the camera and lens as motionless as possible and I snapped a few images.
Then I transferred the images to my computer... did some quick processing... and here is perhaps the best moon shot I've ever shot to date... crisp... some nice detail... some nice color... and some nice tonal qualities.
Full moons are tough to shoot and more often than not this view of our moon is detail-less.
The lighting is actually quite poor during the full moon phase because it is almost straight-on light which creates a surface of the moon devoid of shadows. Lighting from the side which we see with other phases of the moon show many more details because of deeper shadows but we only see part of the moon.
Also, full moons are much brighter than most people realize so most people grossly overexpose their photos of the moon. The full moon is reflecting the intensely bright sun so it is very bright. Even considering these difficulties in shooting a full moon, I think I captured some nice detail in this shot by minimizing my exposure time and keeping this long lens still on the window frame...
I'm really like this lens (especially considering the price) and I'm looking forward to using this lens for wildlife photography as soon as possible!
I had hoped to capture the moon as it rose over the mountains outside our living room. More specifically, I had hoped to capture the moon just as it was cresting over the tree lined mountain ridge, capturing crisp trees with the supermoon behind it.
I peered through the window before coming to my desk but there was no moon in the sky just yet. It wasn't even five minutes later when I heard Sheila ask from the other room, "Is the supermoon tonight?"
I immediately asked, "Is the moon over the mountains already?"
"Yup."
"Ugggg."
Then I grabbed my camera, a freshly charged battery, and my newly purchased Canon 400mm f5.6L lens. I have very little experience with this lens but I knew that this particular lens should be, by far, the best super-telephoto lens I've ever used. It should be the sharpest long lens I've ever used... and it is a physically long lens... used on the best camera I've ever used so I knew I just might capture the best full moon shot I've ever captured before.
I didn't feel like digging out my tripod (my health has been absolutely miserable for more than a week now) so I just rested my new long Canon lens on the window frame of the opened window in our living room... switched my camera to all manual mode... set my ISO to 100... set the shutter speed to 1/650th sec... set the aperture to f8... found the moon in my viewfinder... carefully focused... held my breath while keeping the camera and lens as motionless as possible and I snapped a few images.
Then I transferred the images to my computer... did some quick processing... and here is perhaps the best moon shot I've ever shot to date... crisp... some nice detail... some nice color... and some nice tonal qualities.
Full moons are tough to shoot and more often than not this view of our moon is detail-less.
The lighting is actually quite poor during the full moon phase because it is almost straight-on light which creates a surface of the moon devoid of shadows. Lighting from the side which we see with other phases of the moon show many more details because of deeper shadows but we only see part of the moon.
Also, full moons are much brighter than most people realize so most people grossly overexpose their photos of the moon. The full moon is reflecting the intensely bright sun so it is very bright. Even considering these difficulties in shooting a full moon, I think I captured some nice detail in this shot by minimizing my exposure time and keeping this long lens still on the window frame...
It is the following morning now... my vision issues have mostly cleared up so I went back and looked at the photos I shot last night. My vision was quite lousy last night. Here is a closer view of the supermoon from last night...
I'm really like this lens (especially considering the price) and I'm looking forward to using this lens for wildlife photography as soon as possible!
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