Scenes with Full Moon at night

[Diane Maher]

I am planning to do some shooting of a scene which will include the full moon tonight. This will be done with either HP5+ or TMax 400 (I'm not sure which film I have loaded). It will be in a conservation park which has no lighting other than natural light. It would be nice to get the moon such that it is not a blur in the sky. Is this possible at all under these conditions? I did some test shots with 8x10 Acros last week and had moon blur at 2 min.

I would also like to shoot the landscape under the moon (moon not in the shot, but acting as the reflecting light source). Has anyone shot moonlit landscapes away from city lights?

[Sevo]

Getting the moon, unblurred, is trivial - it is a body in full sunlight at earth distance to the sun, so sunny 16 (or rather, sunny 8, if you want to have it white as we are used to perceiving it rather than in the physically more correct dark brown hue of moon dust) applies...

But getting the moon, unblurred and not overexposed, into a landscape only lit by the moon, is plain impossible short of dual exposures.

[Steve M Hostetter]

the sun has fell slightly below the horizon and the moon is at 8- 15 degrees ,,, start with 1/2 sec. @f8 on Tmax400 ..

I took one 8x10 last night on Tmax400 and used the digital camera to confirm my exposure although the LCD told me to closed down one stop from what the meter read which was 1 sec. @f8.. I have yet to process the neg since I'm still needing to expose the remaining sheet..

I hope this helps

steve

[tgtaylor]

Try knocking the moon down with graduates. As far as moonlit landscapes, it's a guess and depends on how much light is actually falling on the landscape. With Acros, try starting at 7 minutes with 1 minute increments.

[Diane Maher]

Sevo, I think that you are quite correct and I didn't think of it quite that way. Come to think of it, I do have a daylight shot that includes the moon (just not full).

Steve, this will be at least an hour after sunset. I have a meeting (camera club) to go to.

tg, for the landscapes, the moon will not be in my shot, but I will keep that in mind.

Thanks to all!

[Wallace_Billingham]

FWIW you can fake what you are looking to do with the landcsape quite well in the middle of the day with IR film such as the Efke IR820 and a Hoya R72 or other IR filter.

It works best 3 hours or so after sun rise or 3 hours or so before sunset. In other words you don't want the sun high or low in the sly but somewhere in the middle. You also need some clouds.

Position the camera so that sun it towards the top of the frame, then wait for the sun to go behind a cloud. Then trip the shutter at 1/2 a second at f/22, and develop the film normally.

Where the sun was you will get a nice black circle on the negative (which will print white of course)and since it was behind a cloud it could just as easily be the moon. The rest of the negative will be under exposed and where the sunlight was brightest on any green foliage will be highlighted but not white like normal IR it will give the effect of moonlight. Any blue sky will look very dark to black just like at night and any clouds will look back lit as if from the full moon.

If you have some water in the fore or middle ground that can reflect some light the effect is even stronger.

Since we get the sun everyday you have much more time to experiment this way that you do with the full moon that is only here once a month

[GPS]

Getting the moon, unblurred, is trivial - it is a body in full sunlight at earth distance to the sun, so sunny 16 (or rather, sunny 8, if you want to have it white as we are used to perceiving it rather than in the physically more correct dark brown hue of moon dust) applies...

But getting the moon, unblurred and not overexposed, into a landscape only lit by the moon, is plain impossible short of dual exposures.

Here we go again... Some myths are eternal...
Because the Moon's reflectance varies wildly depending on its phase and its altitude in the sky any sunny 16 rule doesn't work. Google something more about photographing the Moon to know the more complicated rules about what you think is -trivial. ;)

[ROL]

The trick is to shoot with a fast enough shutter speed to avoid the apparent movement of the moon, which would then blur. By shooting a day or two before the actual full (waxing) moon, an almost indistinguishably full moon can be caught high enough above the horizon during a period after the sun has set, but while the horizon itself is still light enough to register on film at a speed that will still allow imperceptible movement (IMO, tonight is to late, try next month).

5X7 TRI-X 320(200), 300mm Nikon M, f22 @ 8 sec.:
http://www.rangeoflightphotography.com/WalkROLCFA/SamplePix/MonoMoon.jpg