Once again, the full moon

As my readers (a small but loyal group!) may remember I'm working on getting a shot of the full moon rising over downtown Calgary. Tuesday evening was another attempt.

For the non-photographers, a brief digression. Why is this so hard? I mean, full moon, there it is the sky, you can hardly miss it. Point camera, click, done.

Not so fast. Remember that our brain sees differently than a camera, but I don't propose to get into the complexities here. From a camera's perspective the full moon is really bright, and if it's high in the sky the background will be quite dark. When we look at the moon we can clearly see the lighter and darker areas that make up 'the man in the moon'. For a camera to pick that up requires getting the settings right, and there isn't a lot of choice about it, unlike a normally lit scene like a landscape. Then take into account it moves quickly, which limits the exposure time quite sharply. That makes the settings even harder. Now imagine trying to get the moon settings right, and some comparatively dark buildings on the horizon. Generally, unless the buildings are a really long way away, you can focus on the moon, or on the buildings, but not both. This is why many photographic artists composite a nice moon into a photo of the desired object.

I like to get set up early. Here's an ok skyline shot with nice warm colours against a somewhat murky sky. This is 150 mm focal length.

Two lovers waiting for the moon to be romantic, or something.

Tada! The full moon rising over a building, just not downtown like I wanted. It rose quite a bit further east than I expected. If you look at a good version of this photo, you would see the buildings are ever so slightly out of focus. The edges of the moon are rippled because of atmospheric distortion. The cool orange colour comes from the atmospheric haze.

Slightly different treatment of downtown gives an entirely different feel. This is about 213 mm focal length, so you see a little less from side to side.

Last shot of the night, with another lens at 70 mm, so you see quite a bit more. I like seeing downtown as a bright island lit up by the moon.

That last shot illustrates what happens when you shoot a full moon at the incorrect settings for the moon. You get a bright white spot.

Stay tuned for more reflection shots tomorrow.