Hoping to get some input on shooting a landscape with a full moon, either with some clouds or no clouds. I'm thinking about proper metering to shoot either HP5 or FP4+. I also have some Fufi Acros 100. I want detail in the landscape as well as the moon, but I think I'm looking more for moon light scene with full moon. Any examples and advice on exposure, developing and printing would be great.
The moon moves fairly quickly in the sky. As a result, if you want to avoid motion blur, you probably want to keep your exposure to under 30 seconds. If you were just taking a detailed close-up picture of the moon, you'd want the exposure to be even shorter, but in this case the moon should be a pretty small element of the picture, and so the requirements won't be as high.
“You often feel tired, not because you've done too much, but because you've done too little of what sparks a light in you.”
― Alexander Den Heijer, Nothing You Don't Already Know
Thank you Peter. I do want to avoid motion blur, but I'll have to use somewhat longish exposure to shoot stopped down. I plan on shooting around f16 or f22 to get the most out of depth of field. The scene I'm thinking of is a long valley shot at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains. What do you think about metering? I'm assuming that the basics apply, meter for the shadows I want detail, place in zone 4, check to see where my shortest exposure would fall and if necessary open up the lens for it. I'm also thinking of using a 210mm as this is the longest lens I have in my arsenal.
Do you mean taking shots under moon light as apposed to shots of the moon? If the former, there is the Looney 16 rule which says, basically, to add 18 to 18.5 stops to the Sunny 16 rule for a sunny day under full moon light.
Another general rule for a full moon is 8 minutes @ f8 for ISO 100 and you can work out combination's of other shutter/aperture/ISO from there. Of course you need to take the film's reciprocity characteristics into account. But for Acros you only need to adjust 1/2 stop of additional exposure after 120 seconds for reciprocity.
Here is a general guide for Acros at f8 with clear to thin cloud cover. Phase is day before/after a full moon where 0 = full moon.
Phase/Time
0: 10-20 min
1: 15-30 min
2: 20-40 min
3: 25-60 min
Don't expect your shadows to be like daylight. They will be deeper and more like when you use a red filter.
Someone on here back a while posted a number of shots on HP5+ pushed to 1600 in Rodinal. Grain being not too important to me in 4x5 I'd like the info on that but I think I asked about it once, got an answer, and now can't find that either.
Not sure if that would help though as you might get faster actual film performance at those times from Acros given the lack of reciprocity failure.
The moon is going to appear TINY in a normal photo. Our eye/brain system makes it seem bigger to us than it optically "should." It's about the apparent angular size of a dime held at arm's length. If you don't believe that, try eclipsing the full moon with a dime. You'll find you can.
Thanks Tuco, I did mean moonlight from a full moon. I want as much shadow detail as I can reasonably expect with the moon light bringing in the highlights. Roger, I too would like to see some examples posted and will post my results as soon as I get something shot. Thanks all, this is turning out to be more of a challenge than I thought.
Well, you can find a pretty famous example here: http://nikosono.files.wordpress.com/...mexico1941.jpg
“You often feel tired, not because you've done too much, but because you've done too little of what sparks a light in you.”
― Alexander Den Heijer, Nothing You Don't Already Know
I don't think the Ansel shot would be pure moonlight since the moon is so low on the horizon. But you can see pure moonlight examples with Acros and other films on Nightfly's Flickr stream. This guy does really good wide-field astro photography on film in medium format.Originally Posted by RPippin
Yes indeed............with the moon rising in the west behind the buildings and the light coming from the East on the front of the building, I would say the moon is providing virtually none of the landscape illumination.I don't think the Ansel shot would be pure moonlight since the moon is so low on the horizon.
Thanks,
Kirk
at age 73:
"The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep"
I'm sure that you've already checked it out, but this is just a word of advice: make sure that the focal length of your lens is at least twice your longest negative dimention, or the moon will appear to only be a distracting dot, not an element of the composition.
AA's "Moonrise" was made with a 23" lens on a 8x10 camera, and becomes periously close to being lost in a 8x10 print.
Wilhelm (Sarasota)
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