Full Moon Photography

So far almost 18,000, 360grandlake.com viewers have seen my Super Full Moon photos at sailboat bridge on Grand Lake. I feel honored that so many folks have taken the time to appreciate this unique event through the lens of my cameras. Because of this high level of interest, I thought I would take a couple of minutes and talk about how I achieved these images. After all there are many more full moons to come, and some of you might want to try your luck at capturing one.

Basically I used good photo principles as follows:

1. Think ahead of time about where you want to be and when you want to be there in order to capture a unique event. If possible, scout out the location ahead of time.
2. For low light events like a full moon, Put your camera on a tripod and use long exposures in order to capture plenty of detail.
3. Turn off "ISO Auto" on your camera. If you don't, your camera will continue to increase your ISO (the sensitivity of your digital sensor), resulting in grainy, noisy images.
4. Pay attention to the natural situation as it unfolds in front of your eyes in order to capture unique aspects.

It is this last bit of advice that provided some of the real magic for me in this full moon shoot.

As evening went on, I started shooting in HDR, "High Dynamic Range", which uses three bracketed exposures. One of these exposures is much brighter than the camera would normally choose. As I watched these exposures come up on my camera's LCD screen, I noticed that the brightest exposures demonstrated the extreme amount of light that the Super Moon was putting out, by revealing that on this night, the moon was actually bright enough to not only light up the sky, but also to light up the foliage along the shoreline of the Lake. Once I realized this unexpected phenomenon, I took several more images highlighting this effect.

These HDR photos were the ones that were then picked up by local and national news, because meteorologists could use them as examples of how unusually bright (30% brighter than normal) this celestial event actually was. Had I simply stuck with a single high-quality exposure taken from my tripod, I would never have captured these unique images. 

Stay tuned to this blog, because each week, my son Coby and I will try and bring you unique images and as well as comments about different events, wildlife, and special kinds of natural beauty occurring around Grand Lake. Whenever possible, we will inform you as to where these events are happening, and how you might best be able to enjoy them.  RC.