Moon photography is something that I have done quite a bit of, and a lot of what I learned was also through trial and error. I also saw the lovely yellow moon tonight, but I didn’t get to take a picture, we were rushing off to have a musical program at a local nursing home…
The yellow moon is a lot harder to capture properly. For one thing, the only time it’s yellow is when it’s low on the horizon, which, incidentally, is the worst time to photograph the moon as you’ll get a lot more atmospheric distortion. The best time is when it’s high in the sky on a cool night, when atmospheric conditions are the best. However, if we want a picture of the “yellow” moon, we have to do the best we can!
I remember when I was in Africa, the day we visited the wildlife park, we saw a gorgeous full moon coming up over the horizon just after a gorgeous sunset! I missed the sunset since we were driving, but I did manage to get few pictures of the full moon. They aren’t very great, the atmospheric conditions were really bad as you can see. This is the ‘detail’ shot, taken at 250mm. I needed my 300mm, but I was several thousand miles away from it! 🙂
EXIF:
Shutter Speed: 1/80th
Aperture: f/8
ISO Speed: 400
Focal Length: 250mm
Now compare the detail in that shot to this one taken in a clear sky just 2-3 days later…
EXIF:
Shutter Speed: 1/100th
Aperture: f/8
ISO Speed: 200
Focal Length: 250mm
@SarahLeePhoto, I think part of your problem is that you don’t have enough zoom to see much detail. I have a 300mm lens, and even with that, I have to crop so severely that there’s hardly anything left! I’d love to have the new Tamron (or Sigma) 150-600mm, but, “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride”!
@Mr-Quebec, You’re right, there’s no way to get a properly exposed picture of the moon with clouds. Well, I take that back, there can be special conditions, where it’s possible to get a halfway decent photo… It’s definitely not stock photo quality, but it’s a photo!
I’m afraid that you have 2 options. Either you overexpose to capture the yellow glow, and blow all the craters of the moon to white oblivion, or you underexpose, and show every crater in the moon, while darkening the clouds to nothingness. Like @Mr-Quebec said, you could use Photoshop. Technically, you could expose for the clouds, and get the “look” that you want, then expose for the moon, to get detail there. Then pop them into Photoshop (or GIMP) and combine the two. That would be the only way to get a “natural” looking picture.
Just for fun, here’s one more picture of the “yellow” moon in Africa, taken at a much wider angle…
EXIF:
Shutter Speed: 2 sec.
Aperture: f/3.5
ISO Speed: 400
Focal Length: 18mm
