How to get "Harvest Moon" shots...

[lemonjenny]

I'm not so much asking about the lighting/exposure techniques here... more about how to compose such a photograph. How in the world was this photo taken to make the moon look so large against the silhouette of the landscape? Any ideas?

[Michael_2010]

It does make for an interesting shot. Probably involved a good bit of post-processing of one sort or another. I took several Harvest Moon shots last week and had to do some tweaking on those that included some foreground interest, because it can easily get lost against a dark sky.

[dbevisjr]

Last week I was looking into the reason the full moon looks so large at the horizon sometimes and found this.

Moon illusion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[navcom]

Not sure on this one specifically, but there are a couple things that are pretty common. First, a simple zoom lens. Not too much as to destroy the depth of field but enough to get the moon in the shot. Another is simple post processing. Believe it or not, there are many folks who cut and paste the moon into the shot. I've seen this done many times and usually if the moon just looks too big, it's very possible it's really a fake.

[mitawa]

Seems a cut-paste job to me.

[ebojorq]

But it can actually be done, right? I mean, it's one of those shots you reeeeally have to think through.

I use this tool to know the exact coordinates of sunrise/sunset...

ESRL Global Monitoring Division - GRAD Group

You can use this to spot the right angle from which you want to shoot and effectively "put" something in the middle of the moon when it's going up.

These are pretty much the same for the moon, except for the hours. A good rule of thumb is that the moon in the beginning of each of its phases rises out of the horizon at 6:00 am, 12:00 pm, 6:00 pm and 12:00 am. (no daylight saving nonsense). Edit: You would also need a calculator to find out the exact hour, but, as we love to photograph in low light conditions, it wouldn't hurt to be there for a while.

This is why the moon is so dramatic this time of the year, at 6:00 am/pm is almost twilight and the colors of the skymake it more attractive than, say, a full moon in july, when the sun is still way up.

To wrap up, there's another tool I use to find objects in the sky:

Your Sky

It has even a field of view tool for the horizon at your location. If you're interested in astrophotography, this will be a great tool for you.

[navcom]

Originally Posted by ebojorq

But it can actually be done, right? I mean, it's one of those shots you reeeeally have to think through.

I use this tool to know the exact coordinates of sunrise/sunset...

ESRL Global Monitoring Division - GRAD Group

You can use this to spot the right angle from which you want to shoot and effectively "put" something in the middle of the moon when it's going up.

These are pretty much the same for the moon, except for the hours. A good rule of thumb is that the moon in the beginning of each of its phases rises out of the horizon at 6:00 am, 12:00 pm, 6:00 pm and 12:00 am. (no daylight saving nonsense). Edit: You would also need a calculator to find out the exact hour, but, as we love to photograph in low light conditions, it wouldn't hurt to be there for a while.

This is why the moon is so dramatic this time of the year, at 6:00 am/pm is almost twilight and the colors of the skymake it more attractive than, say, a full moon in july, when the sun is still way up.

To wrap up, there's another tool I use to find objects in the sky:

Your Sky

It has even a field of view tool for the horizon at your location. If you're interested in astrophotography, this will be a great tool for you.

Or you can use the Photographer's Ephemeris software (and it's free)....made just for the sunrise photographer. It tells you the sun and moon rise and set times and also graphically displays an azimuth line of all 4 on an overlay of Google Maps just like ESRL does except that you can save your locations. So you can always know exactly where the sun or moon will rise or set anywhere in the world on any day you choose. I use this every day

[ebojorq]

Originally Posted by navcom

Or you can use the Photographer's Ephemeris software (and it's free)....made just for the sunrise photographer. It tells you the sun and moon rise and set times and also graphically displays an azimuth line of all 4 on an overlay of Google Maps just like ESRL does except that you can save your locations. So you can always know exactly where the sun or moon will rise or set anywhere in the world on any day you choose. I use this every day

This is awesome!!!! Thank you, Navcom!!

[lerabu]

If you catch the moon close to the horizon it will look big because of the refracting properties of gasses in the Earth's atmosphere. The gasses simply disperse light and it seems bigger because the light has to go through alot more gas to reach your eye when the moon is on the horizon than when it is high in the sky.

I guess afterwards it's just a matter of finding the right place to take the picture.

Of course, copy paste is always an option... :P

[IainM]

If you have a really big zoom lens, and the moon is close to the horizon, and you are far enough away from the subject you want to place with the moon, then you can get that kind of shot.

It's one of the more fun uses of large zooms.

It does compress perspective but that's not always a bad thing.

This is a link to a youtube video, it's from a BBC series interviewing master photographers. This particular one is with Andreas Feininger, and he has some interesting things to say about using zoom lenses to show scale and size.
YouTube - Andreas Feininger Part1


The shot above has NASA in the corner, so I assume it's from them. I doubt that they would photoshop a shot like that. Especially when I'm quite sure they have the equipment to do that kind of shot.