Five Questions: Moon Lenses, Smoky Summer Landscapes, Noise Tests and More

We get a lot of questions. We hope we have a lot of answers. Today, at least, we have the same number of each. Five, to be specific. Five questions from night photographers just like you, and five answers from the five of us.

If you have any questions you would like to throw our way for a future “Five Questions” blog post, please contact us anytime. Questions could be about gear, national parks or other photo locations, post-processing techniques, field etiquette, or anything else related to night photography. #SeizeTheNight!

1. Moon Lenses

The moon rising over Mesquite Flat Dunes, Death Valley National Park. Nikon D750, Tamron 15-30mm f/2.8. Dunes light painted with a Coast HP5R flashlight. © 2016 Lance Keimig.

Q: I wanted to get a shot of the recent super blue moon full lunar eclipse, but I wasn’t sure which lens would be a good one to use. I wanted to get the moon as part of the landscape, with an in-camera shot (rather than just a zoomed shot of the moon). It would have been OK if the moon wasn’t super huge in my shot—I just wanted a nice overall image. This was with my Nikon D750, and I have a 70-200mm lens. For the next time, should I rent something zoomier (a 200-500mm)?  — Tracy W.B.

A: Lens choice questions are really hard to answer. So much depends on the shot that you have in mind. We recommend using PhotoPills (see their website or in-app links for tutorials and ideas) to plan your shot if you have a location in mind, and then plan your strategy from there. If you don’t have a specific location in mind, then start by thinking about places you could shoot with a good view of the moonrise, figure out exactly where the moonrise will be using PhotoPills, and do some test shots beforehand to see which focal length will work best.

You shouldn’t need to rent a lens since you don’t have a specific shot in mind. Instead, build a shot around the lens you already have! — Lance

2. Cords vs. L-Brackets

Q: When I shoot in portrait orientation with my L-bracket on, I have the problem of not having access to my USB port to connect a remote release, since it is on the left side of the camera where the mounting bracket also is. Do you know of a way to solve that issue? — Michael M.

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Custom-designed L-brackets (such as the Kirk model for the Nikon D750, pictured here) allow the photographer to access all the jacks, ports, controls and so on.

A: I love that you’re using an L-bracket! I could barely survive on a shoot without mine. But yes, I understand your issue, as it’s one I’ve had.

First, if you’re using a generic L-bracket, that could certainly cause this issue. Generic models have the advantage of being less expensive. But the more-expensive custom models (such as those made by Really Right Stuff and Kirk Photo) are designed for specific camera bodies. One of the advantages is that space is left around each jack and port, so you should have ready access to plug in anything you want.

However, that doesn’t mean you can’t still run into problems. For instance, on my Nikon D3s with the Kirk L-bracket attached, I can’t connect a proprietary power cable to an external battery because of the way the plug is designed. Another example is exactly what’s happening to you: Plugs that stick straight out from the jack (rather than at a right angle) might not work when the L-bracket is mounted to a tripod head vertically (which kinda defeats the reason for using the bracket).

I suggest contacting the manufacturer of the accessory you’re trying to plug in and asking if they can supply or recommend an alternative cable. Or, if the accessory is the cable, only buy one with that right-angle-type connector.

Ironically enough, this could also be a case where a generic L-bracket could serve you better; one that’s designed a little taller than your camera could allow enough space to mount the vertically oriented body off-center, providing room for your connector underneath, out of the way of the tripod head. — Chris

3. Wildfires and Smoke in the Northwest U.S.

Q: My experience living in the Pacific Northwest is that, over the past four to five summers, forest fires in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and British Columbia have produced serious haze conditions for both day and night photography in July, August and September. You’re doing a workshop in Glacier National Park this summer. How would you adjust shooting for this possibility? — Dave E.

A: Yes, the past couple of years have been kind of smoky up here! I live in Montana, so I know what you mean.

However, I have been visiting Glacier National Park in summer for over 20 years and have been unable to make images only a couple of times. The images below are from last summer during the height of the fire season and during the infamous Sprague Fire in Glacier that burned down the Sperry Chalet. (Which, incidentally, is being rebuilt!)

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Night photos in Glacier National Park during the 2017 Sprague Fire. Nikon D4s. © 2017 Tim Cooper.

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That’s not to say there is no risk, but wind conditions, locations of fires, etc., play such a big part. It’s really hard to guess when fires will happen and when they will inhibit photography.

That being said, if I did run into an abundance of smoke, I would be looking all over the park and surrounding areas for clearer skies. All of us at National Parks at Night love light painting, full-moon shooting and all types of night photography. Shooting the Milky Way and star trails is just one part of what we focus on, so smoke certainly wouldn’t make us pack up the cameras for the night. I’ve been in many situations where the skies were overcast and the image-making was great due to other aspects of the scene. — Tim

4. Intervalometers for Fuji X-T Bodies

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Q: I recently attended one of Matt’s speaking engagements and it definitely sparked an interest to experiment with some night photography in the coming months. I have a Fuji X-T2 kit that includes a 10-24mm lens, along with a nice stable tripod. I’m planning to purchase an intervalometer cable release next week. Have you used a wired or wireless intervalometer shutter release with an X-T2 with success? — Elliot R.

A: Yup. There are two intervalometers that I find work well with the X-T2. For a wired model, I recommend the Vello ShutterBoss II (ignore that it says it’s for Canon—it also works with your Fuji!). For wireless, I recommend (surprise!) the Vello Wireless ShutterBoss II.

I use the wired model all the time with my X-T1 for time-lapses. Gabe uses an X-T2 with the same wired release.

However, before choosing, I do recommend considering the pros and cons of a wired versus wireless intervalometer. See my 2017 blog post “Remote Question: Wireless or Wired Intervalometers for Camera Triggering?” — Matt

5. Noise With Varying-Quality Cameras

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A side-by-side comparison of ISO 100 (left) and ISO 51,200 (right) images from a camera noise test.

Q: In the descriptions of your workshops you say to know your DSLR or high-end mirrorless, but I’m not sure what is considered “high-end.” I have a Sony Alpha a6000. I have tried a few times doing night photography using that with a Samyang 12mm f/2. I also see you guys mention full-frame; how important is full-frame versus crop sensor when doing night photography? I have seen amazing night photography pictures using the Sony a6000. — Kylee W.

A: While there are plenty of crop-sensor cameras that do well with night photography, I have found the a6000 and a6300 get rather noisy with long exposures. But everything is definitely subjective, and my tolerance for noise might be less than yours. The best advice I would offer is to test your camera, figure out how noisy it gets and establish your own parameters. You can run this test either in the field or in the comfort of your home.

Take a picture of something that has shadows in it (because noise appears in the shadow areas first). Put your camera on a tripod and take a series of shots at ISOs of 1600, 3200, 6400, etc.

Then (and, for this, you might have to turn your lights low and stop down your ISO and apertures), do a series of images at various shutter speeds: 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes. ... Keep doubling your time and adjust your ISO and apertures (or lighting), and end at somewhere around 8 minutes.

Do these tests with your camera’s noise reduction features off, and then again with the noise reduction features on. See if that makes a difference.

Download the images to your computer and inspect them at 100 percent. Look for two things:

1. When your image gets too grainy for your taste, that is the ISO that you will want to avoid.
2. In your long-exposure images, look for red, purple and other colored specks. That is color noise from the long exposures. Again, determine the ISO at which that becomes unacceptable to you.

This test will help you establish the parameters in which you can successfully operate your camera (according to your own tastes) with both the high ISOs and the long shutter speeds that are needed for most night photography.

If you’d like to see a more detailed rundown on how to perform a high ISO test, along with sample images, see our 2016 blog post “Keep The Noise Down: How To Take An ISO Test With Your Camera.” — Gabriel

Chris Nicholson is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night, and author of Photographing National Parks (Sidelight Books, 2015). Learn more about national parks as photography destinations, subscribe to Chris' free e-newsletter, and more at www.PhotographingNationalParks.com.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

How Lightroom Classic CC 7.3's New Features Help the Night Photographer

Since Adobe has shifted their products from the old model of owning a piece of software to the more recent pay-per-month lease model, we have seen more frequent updates and upgrades. While many of these updates don’t make a big splash, occasionally we get a real treat. That’s the case with Adobe Lightroom’s most recent release, CC 7.3.

A particular few of these changes make life a little easier and allow some more creative options for the night photographer. We produced a video to help you navigate these changes and to learn how to maximize them for night work. We cover:

• workflow and editing tools that have been moved to more convenient places
• the new Adobe Color profile
• how to use these tools to improve night imagery

Check out the following video to see what Adobe has added to our toolbox, and how night photographers can use these new and recalibrated features to craft powerful imagery!

Tim Cooper is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night. Learn more techniques from his book The Magic of Light Painting, available from Peachpit.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

How I Got the Shot: Waterfall and Clements Mountain in Glacier National Park

“Clements Mountain, Star Trails, Waterfall.” © Tim Cooper.

The Location

I am fortunate to live in Montana. It’s a beautiful state filled with wonderful people and fantastic landscapes. My “backyard” is Glacier National Park. Glacier is truly one of America’s great alpine experiences—from gorgeous glaciated peaks to alpine meadows carpeted with wildflowers to the host of wildlife visible on a near daily basis. I take every chance I can to get up to the park.

Early last summer I made this image while scouting for our upcoming National Parks at Night workshops in August and September. (While the first week of this workshop is already filled, the second week still has some spots available. Check out our workshop page for more information.)

Luck vs. Planning

When it comes to photography, I always give luck a little credit. Did the clouds cover the sky? Or did they add a nice accent? Did it rain on the night I had planned to shoot? There are so many small blessings that are easy to overlook.

Luck, however, is no substitute for planning. If you read this blog often then you have seen us discuss many times the importance of planning a night shoot. My familiarity with Glacier helped enormously with planning this shot. I already knew the location of the waterfall and exactly where I wanted the moon to be so that it would backlight the water. It was just a simple matter of using the indispensable phone app, PhotoPills, to determine when the moon would reach the necessary spot in the sky (see Figure 1).

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Figure 1. The zoomed-out and zoomed-in views of the shoot location, as seen in PhotoPills’' Planner mode. The blue lines told me where the moon would be at different times of the night, which told me when to shoot for the effect I wanted.

The Exposure

I wanted to use the moon to illuminate the falls, but I also envisioned star trails rather than star points in my image. To create the effect of star trails, you have to make a very long exposure—15 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour or even longer. This makes the stars appear as if they are trailing through the sky. Another method to create these trails is to break up the exposure time into shorter chunks, and then stack the resulting set of images in post-production. This is especially helpful under bright moon situations or when you want to light paint.

Using multiple short exposures was my plan for this setup. The first step was to calculate an exposure using a high ISO test (i.e., the 6 Stop Rule). Setting my Nikon D4s to ISO 3200 and f/4, my final test shot (Figure 2) was exposed for 30 seconds.

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Figure 2. Test shot at 30 seconds, f/4, ISO 3200.

The Shoot

Typically night photographers use an ISO of 6400 for test shots because, according to that 6 Stop Rule, we know that an exposure time of X seconds at ISO 6400 equals X minutes at ISO 100. This is a very handy little trick for calculating long exposures easily.

Because my successful test exposure was 30 seconds at ISO 3200, which equals 15 seconds at ISO 6400, then my long low-ISO exposure would be 15 minutes at ISO 100. Or—to shorten things up a bit—8 minutes at ISO 200. Using this exposure, I could shoot multiple frames at 8 minutes and blend them later in post using the star-stacking technique.

This evening, however, I either miscalculated or mistakenly set my camera wrong. My final exposures (Figure 3) ended up being shot at 5 minutes, f/4, ISO 100. That’s about two stops underexposed!

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Figure 3.

I didn’t notice that at the time. I finished shooting and had to leave immediately, so there was no time to reshoot the frames. I was destined to have to fix it later in post.

Post-Processing

After downloading my images, the first post-processing edit was adjusting the Exposure slider to account for the underexposure out in the field. After increasing the exposure, the final set of images looked like this:

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Figure 4.

The next step was to blend all the frames together to create the star trail effect. I began by selecting all of the images in Lightroom. Next, from the menu I selected Photo > Edit In > Open as Layers in Photoshop. This opens all of the images into Photoshop as layers within one file.

Once the file opened, I clicked on the top layer, held down the Shift key, then clicked on the bottom layer. This selects all of the layers in the file.

Next, in the Blending Mode drop-down list (circled in red in Figure 5), I selected Lighten (Figure 6).

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Figure 5.

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Figure 6.

This blending mode allows the brightest part of each layer to show through on the final image, which in this case creates the effect of the stars trailing across the sky. Figure 7 shows the result of blending the images with this technique.

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Figure 7.

Did you notice the multiple car headlights that showed up after blending the layers? They were in the first, second and last photo frames (Figure 8). Because using the Lighten mode reveals the brightest parts of each layer, all the headlights showed up after blending.

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Figure 8.

So, the next step was to remove the unwanted car lights. One of the benefits of stacking frames rather than taking one long exposure is that you can use layer masks to remove unwanted artifacts that show up in just a few frames rather than overwhelming an entire final photo. To do this, I clicked on the first layer that contained headlights to select it. Then at the bottom of the Layers palette I clicked on the Add a Mask icon (Figure 9).

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Figure 9.

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Figure 10.

Next I selected the paintbrush tool and chose black as my foreground color. Then I just painted on the mask over the area I wanted to remove. Notice in Figure 10 how I painted over the tunnel where the car headlights appeared. Also notice the corresponding black area on the white mask thumbnail, indicating the shape and location of the mask.

I followed the same steps for the other two layers with the artifact, painting out the headlights further up the road. Figure 11 shows the three masks with black painted on them covering up all of the headlights that exist on the different layers.

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Figure 11.

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Figure 12.

Finally, I wanted to separate the cool tones of the sky from the foreground waterfall. I clicked on the bottom layer, chose the Quick Select tool and then selected the foreground waterfall and cliff face (Figure 12).

Then I created a Color Balance layer by choosing Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Color Balance. Adding some warmth via the Red and Yellow sliders started to really separate the warm colors in the foreground from the cool colors of the background.

Figure 13 shows the final image.

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Figure 13. Five stacked frames, each shot at 5 minutes, f/4, ISO 100 with a Nikon D4s and Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8 lens zoomed out to 14mm.

While this may sound like a lot of work, after a little practice in Photoshop, you’ll find that completing these types of images takes no time at all!

Tim Cooper is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night. Learn more techniques from his book The Magic of Light Painting, available from Peachpit.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

The Night Photography Game-Changer: Day for Night Filters Now Available

At first glance, the National Parks at Night mission might appear to be solely about venturing into parks in the dark to teach night photography. But our broader mission is much … well, broader. It’s about pushing the envelope for the entire world of night photography.

To that end, we’ve been quietly working hard for the past 14 months to develop our first tangible product—a set of tools that will at once help established night photographers expand their creative potential and give new night photographers an easier way into the niche.

And finally, we are very proud and excited to announce the National Parks at Night “Day For Night Filters.”

This is a toolkit of seven classes of filters—available individually, in sets or in one comprehensive package—designed to allow certain types of night photography to be executed even when conditions aren’t right for traditional approaches to shooting in the dark.

The idea behind the filters is born from the old-time filming technique of “day for night”—essentially, using daytime light conditions to produce a nighttime look. But while the film crews of yesteryear generally accomplished this effect simply by underexposing, this toolkit goes a step further.

How The Filters Work

All our filters feature a neutral density (ND) base layer, which is then etched to produce different common astro-landscape looks when photographing a daylight scene. The etched portions allow daylight in while the ND portions keep other areas dark. The combination allows for a wide range of effects, from star points to star trails to the Milky Way and even auroras! Plus much, much more.

The ND portions, however, are not completely neutral—they have a cool-toned coating (mired-blue, for the tech-minded reader) that produces a truer “nighttime” look. Conversely, the etched portions of the filters have a mix of warming tones. This DualTemp (patent pending) combination of these two color-correcting filter technologies produces images that look exactly as if they were photographed at night.

The Toolkit

Our initial rollout is a selection of filters crafted to reproduce the most popular night photography scenarios, as detailed below.

(Unless otherwise noted, all filters are available in rectangular format in sizes 85mm, 100mm and 165mm.)

Star Points Filter

The most basic of our Day For Night Filters is the “Star Point,” which allows you to photograph “under a night sky” no matter what time of day you’re shooting. The neutral density overlay is pocked with tiny pits, each a different size with subtle variations in color temperature, all of which combine to create a highly realistic starry sky effect when shot with daylight color temperatures.

The Star Points kit includes three filters with different densities of stars, for maximum creative leeway.

Star Trails Filter

Sometimes stationary stars aren’t enough. Enter our “Star Trails” filter, which allows you to create the illusion of bending time, even with considerably short exposures.

These filters come in different star densities (low-density for fewer star trails, high-density for more), and also come in different trail lengths (4mm, 16mm and 32mm) to mimic various long-exposure times. The entire set will allow for maximum creativity, giving the option to swap in different effects for different scenes.

Star Circles Filter

One of the coolest tricks to round out the night photographer’s repertoire is the ability to produce star circles by pointing north on a clear night and opening the shutter for a good hour or more. But now you can create the same effect pointing in any direction (opening up many more possible compositions), and in much less time!

Our “Star Circles” filters come in two varieties:

Rectangular, which offers a fixed set of star circles that can be positioned to suit the composition by moving the filter up or down in the holder.

Circular, which features a rotating ring that makes the star trails shorter or longer.

Milky Way Filter

Perhaps the most popular night photography achievement of the past decade is the ability to capture the dense cluster of stars of the Milky Way. But even though modern camera technology has put our galaxy in reach of shutterbugs throughout the solar system, photographing it still comes with challenges—namely, having to wait for the right time of year to view it, the right time of night for it to appear over the horizon, and its propensity to hardly ever be hovering in a compositionally pleasing place in the scene.

All those issues are solved by using our “Milky Way” filter. It comes in a standard rectangular format, which enables you to place the galactic core anywhere you want in the sky of your composition, and you can then adjust the angle of the core by rotating your filter holder.

Moon Phases Filter Kit

Normally, if you have a solid idea of how you want the moon to look in a scene, you need to do a lot of planning to make it happen. Earth’s only satellite floats all over the night sky, and its particular phases appear only once per month.

All these challenges dissipate once you begin using our “Moon” filters. A set of 10 filters allows you to add the moon to any scene, in any way you want. The entire “Moon Phases” kit features the moon in three different sizes (grande, venti and trenta) and four different phases (full, quarter, crescent and new).

Moon filters can be used alone for a clean-sky effect, or stacked with Star Point filters for a combined, starry sky effect.

Aurora Filter

We almost didn’t manufacture this filter because of the technical complications first in manipulating the necessary technology, and then in actually constructing the glass. But to be honest, it’s the filter we’re most excited about: the “Aurora.”

Until now, photographing auroras has been the playground only of those willing to travel to far-flung polar regions, such as the popular photography destinations of Iceland, Norway and Red Dog Mine, Alaska. But if you want to shoot the northern lights from your own back yard, then this filter is all you need.

Our Aurora filters come in two varieties:

Rectangular, which offers a fixed aurora that can be positioned to suit the composition by moving the filter up or down in the holder.

Circular, which features a rotating ring that changes the shape of the aurora!

(If you live in the Southern Hemisphere, please be sure to order the “Southern Lights” filter for the most accurate results.)

BONUS! — The Keimig Firework Filter

For a limited time only, free with any purchase of three or more filters is an out-of-the box idea from National Parks at Night partner and instructor Lance Keimig, whose motto is, “There’s no night landscape that doesn’t look better with fireworks!”

The “Keimig Firework Filter” is rectangular, making it positionable so that you can place the firework where it serves the composition best. Now any day (or night) can be the 4th of July or New Year’s.

(Coming this December, be sure to look out for our “Keimig Kristmas Lights” filter set, which will accomplish similar results. Decorate the rim of the Grand Canyon!)

Filters That Solve Problems

We’re confident that our Day For Night filters will solve many of the entry barriers to nocturnal photography, and will also help ease the burdens of experienced night photographers. Quite simply, night photography is hard, and these filters make it easier.

• No more need to wait for Milky Way season.

• No more need to travel to aurora “destinations.”

• No more in-the-dark focusing hassles.

• No more looking for something to do during crazy-long exposures.

• Get to sleep at a reasonable hour.

How to Purchase

All of our Day for Night filters are being carried exclusively by B&H Photo in New York City, as well as the camera department of the General Store in Bodie, California, and are available for purchase immediately. Please click the button below to order.

Get Creative!

The only thing that excites us more than developing and releasing these filters is that now we get to see what you do with them. We encourage you to get out into the field, use these great new night photography tools, and share your images in the comments section.

Seize the night! (Or day!)

Chris Nicholson is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night, and author of Photographing National Parks (Sidelight Books, 2015). Learn more about national parks as photography destinations, subscribe to Chris' free e-newsletter, and more at www.PhotographingNationalParks.com.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

Shooting for the Moon: How to Photograph Earth's Little Cousin

Humankind has been fascinated with the moon since the birth of photography. One of the first things that was attempted during the daguerreotype days was to try to record the moon in all its detail. John Williams Draper was the first to successfully mount a camera box onto a handmade telescope and track a full moon for 20 minutes using a heliosat.

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Oldest surviving image of the moon. John Williams Draper, 1840.

That print from 1840 has unfortunately sustained extensive damage and now looks like a bubbly surreal etching. But this effort kick-started astrophotography, and we have many remaining images of our satellite from that early era. The first detailed images are credited to John Adams Whipple, who starting in 1849made daguerreotypes of the moon using the telescope at the Harvard College Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Other early successes include an image by Henry Draper (John’s son), shot from Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, in 1863.

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"View of the Moon,” by John Adams Whipple, 1852.

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“Photo of the Moon,” by Henry Draper, 1863.

Modern Moon Photography

Photographically speaking, the moon is closer than ever before, so how can we improve our moon shots before we start colonizing?

The three things to consider when shooting the moon are:

1. the phase (as it relates to brightness)
2. cycle (angle)
3. elevation (how high is the moon in the sky?)

Also remember that moonlight is actually sunlight reflecting off a gray surface—so it’s pretty bright. Most of the time the tricky part is that the moon is brighter than the rest of the scene. For this blog post, we will focus on shooting the moon while it is full and most luminous.

Exposure

The Looney 11 Rule continues to be a great starting point for figuring out the correct exposure for a craterlicious moon. The rule is:

For astronomical pictures of the moon’s surface, set your aperture to f/11 and match the shutter speed to your ISO.

For example: 1/125, f/11, ISO 100.

However, please remember—and I can’t stress this enough—that the formula above does not always give you an exact correct exposure, but rather a starting point. Use the formula to get an exposure that will likely be close, and then adjust to precision using your histogram as a guide.

Gear

One challenge to consider is that ideally you need a long lens to focus in and get close to the moon. How many of you have taken pictures of a little while circle in the sky? Minimally, I’d use a lens that can get to 300mm, but the closer the better!

We were very fortunate at our “Blue Supermoon” workshop in Biscayne National Park in January, as Nikon sent us their majestic telescope of a lens, the 800mm f/5.6. This is currently Nikon’s longest lens. The 800mm generally attracts the high-end market of wildlife and sports photographers, but for shooting the moon, nothing else of this quality gets you closer. The lens comes with a matched 1.25X teleconverter that, when mounted, makes this a 1000mm lens!

We still didn’t think that was close enough, so we attached the lens to Nikon’s top APS-C camera, the D500. The crop sensor on the D500 turned our 1000mm lens into a 1500mm! Talk about extreme close-up!

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The moon photographed at a focal length of 100mm.

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… 300mm.

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… 1200mm.

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… 1500mm.

The challenge we encountered with the 1500mm-equivalent lens is that it was very big and heavy. We mounted it to a Wimberley Gimbal head on a Gitzo mountaineer tripod. This allowed us more precise control so that we could easily track the moon, as the magnification caused it to be out of the frame in just about a minute. Even mounted on this rig the lens would easily shake in the breeze, so later in the evening we added a second tripod (a Gitzo 3543) under the lens hood for two-point contact and stability.

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Henry Draper’s setup in 1863 versus ours in 2018.

Freezing the Action

Which brings me to the next factor when photographing the moon: If you are shooting handheld or with a large lens (400mm or longer), then your shutter speed should match your focal length. We found the shutter speed of 1/1000 to be acceptable for our setup, which (per the Looney 11 Rule) meant we had to boost our ISO to 1000.

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Craterlicious moon, Biscayne National Park. Nikon D500 with a Nikkor 800mm f/5.6. 1/1000, f/11, ISO 1000.

Find a Foreground

If you want to level up your moon game, the next challenge is finding a foreground for the moon to intersect or play against. This will give more context and tell a better story about your lunar experience.

In order to do this you’ll need to do some planning. The best tool to help with this is the PhotoPills app. You can go into the Planner mode, drop your pin anywhere in the world and see where and when the sun and moon will rise and set in that exact location on any day of the year.

When I was scouting to shoot a supermoon in late 2016 (below), using PhotoPills I could see the time and path of where the moon would rise. I was interested in having it intersect with an icon of New York City. So I dropped my pin at various positions until I found the best pier at South Street Seaport to see the moon rise through the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges.

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I needed a 3-minute window for the supermoon to shine through the clouds and bridges, a juxtaposition of time and place that required some serious planning with the PhotoPills app. Nikon D750 with a Tamron 150-600mm f/5-6.3 lens set to 370mm. 1/2, f/11, ISO 400.

In the PhotoPills Planner mode we can see the color code of the table—light blue means moonrise, which was going to happen at 5:14 p.m. that evening (November 11). I set the pin to where I would stand and the light blue line showed the path (azimuth) of the moon from that point. (See Figure 1, below.)

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Figure 1.

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Figure 2.

You can use the touchscreen on your phone or tablet to move the bottom time bar back and forth to see how the path of the moon (or sun) will change throughout the day. (Figure 2.)

Shoot During Twilight

Shooting the full moon is usually most effective the day before it’s 100 percent full. That’s when the moon will be rising just before sunset, allowing you to shoot it approximately 30 minutes prior to sunset and into civil twilight. This gives you more time to photograph the moon in better and more balanced light. (For more about working at this time of day, see Tim’s excellent blog post “Out of the Blue: The Importance of Twilight to the Night Photographer.”)

The next full moon we will encounter will be next Saturday, March 31 (which, incidentally, will be our second blue moon of the year). According to PhotoPills, at my home in New York City that day the moon will rise at 7:38 p.m. and the sun will set at 7:20 p.m. Civil twilight will be from 7:20 p.m. to 7:48 p.m. This would give us only 10 minutes to shoot the moon during ideal light, all during civil twilight.

However, the day before (Friday, March 30), the moon will rise at 6:31 p.m., the sun will set at 7:19 p.m. and civil twilight will end at 7:46 p.m. This will give us over an hour of shooting the moon—during golden hour, sunset and then blue hour. The moon will also be higher in the sky, providing more opportunities to play it against any interesting foregrounds.

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This image was taken during  golden hour, providing the opportunity for a rich and balanced exposure. Sony RX100 set at 92mm. 1/60, f/10, ISO 125.

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I was able to just eke out this shot of the full moon and get some detail in the buildings during nautical twilight. Fuji X-Pro1 with a Fuji 55-200mm f/3.5-4.8 lens set at 200mm. 1/250, f/8, ISO 400.

Wrapping Up

We hope these tips have inspired you to incorporate the craterlicious moon more into your night work! We’d love to see what you do. As you photograph the full moon March 30 and other months, please post your images in the comments section.

Gabriel Biderman is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night. He is a Brooklyn-based fine art and travel photographer, and author of Night Photography: From Snapshots to Great Shots (Peachpit, 2014). During the daytime hours you'll often find Gabe at one of many photo events around the world working for B&H Photo’s road marketing team. See his portfolio and workshop lineup at www.ruinism.com.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT