Moon Photography

[TannerPhotography]

I was wondering how people make the moon really big in their pictures. Does anyone know?
Thanks

Here is a link to what I am talking about.

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=...w=1680&bih=933

[scootermcq]

No link posted...

Off top though, you can use a telescope or crop the image so the moon fills the frame

[TannerPhotography]

How do you edit posts? I want to post an actual link. =)

[scootermcq]

From the photographer's writings on this image:

The next time you are out photographing a full moon, hold a pencil's eraser away from your dominant eye until it covers the moon (note your distance from the eraser to your eye). Let the moon climb into the sky until it looks noticably smaller, then retry the eraser at the same distance from your eye - it will be the same! When you look at the moon, regardless of its position in the sky, rays of moonlight converge and from an image about 0.15mm wide in the back of your eye. High moons and low moons make the same sized spot. Illinois State University physics professor, Carl Wenning, concluded that humans judge objects on the horizon as being further away, thus a moon on the horizon must be really big to span half-a-degree across the sky, so our brain inflates the moon accordingly. Illusion's are cool and have been used in photography and filmmaking for years. As always, I invite you to visit my website at Don Smith Portfolio - Recent Landscape Work, Coastal Landscapes, Yosemite Landscapes, Mountain Landscapes, Desert Landscapes, Bay Area / Rural Landscapes, Tropical Landscapes, San Jose Sharks Images, Sports Images, Entertainment Images.

[TannerPhotography]

Although that info is helpful, it doesn't quite answer my question. Do you know a technique to get the large moon pictures?

[navcom]

In layman's terms, use a longer focal length. The moon will appear bigger in your image the more you zoom in. If you want the foreground in focus, you need to have an appropriate depth of field, which is controlled by the aperture.

Here's a couple examples (albiet one is the sun but the same principle applies)...


This one was taken at 300mm and f/16. I used f/16 to ensure that I got the foreground in focus as much as possible. Notice how large the sun appears to be. It's the result of using such a long focal length...


This one was taken at a very wide 16mm with an aperture of f/14, with the aperture set for the same reason. Notice how small the moon looks. This is because I used a very short focal length (wide angle lens)...


Be aware that when you use a long focal length, your composition will need to support this length because perception of height and depth will be skewed. For my sunset above, I was zoomed in to a farm about 3 miles away even though it appears I'm standing in the field. In the wide angle shot of the moon, I was only about 3 feet away from that big rock (the second rock, that is) even though it looks like I'm about 10 feet away. That rock was only about 16 inches high even though it looks like it's 3 feet high! The focal length changes your perception in the final image.

Hope that helps!

[Batista]

Photographing the moon can be tricky. Last year I had a go at it and it was a complete disaster with the moon looking like a big bright blurry mass in the sky. After a bit of trial and error I discovered how to take nice shots of the moon. Please see the two examples to the right. The next thing you 100% need is a tripod. Keeping the camera still is essential for getting a sharp image, and if your using a long zoom lens camera shake will be an issue as it's the longer the zoom the more camera shake affects the image.

[Aegea]

Assuming that the photo referenced by the OP was not photoshopped or hugely cropped, a quick calculation shows it must have been taken with something like an 800mm lens (35mm equivalent) (if I got the math right!). Honking big telephoto!

[senorfrisk]

Originally Posted by Aegea

Assuming that the photo referenced by the OP was not photoshopped or hugely cropped, a quick calculation shows it must have been taken with something like an 800mm lens (35mm equivalent) (if I got the math right!). Honking big telephoto!

He said he used a 400mm lens on his website/blog, so it was probably cropped. He has a lot of interesting articles on photography. Don Smith Portfolio - Recent Landscape Work, Coastal Landscapes, Yosemite Landscapes, Mountain Landscapes, Desert Landscapes, Bay Area / Rural Landscapes, Tropical Landscapes, San Jose Sharks Images, Sports Images, Entertainment Images

[Sloseph]

this tutorial helped me, its really quite easy

How I shoot the moon..

give it a go