It was very much last minute when my wife alerted me about the last supermoon of the year. No chance to drive out to the desert, so I set up camera and tripod in my back yard. I did a search to find out the compass heading for the moon rise, and it looked like it would be rising in the middle of my neighbor's palm trees. That has potential!
So why do moon shots have to be so difficult, anyway?? By the time the moon was rising above the palm trees, it was getting dark outside and the palms were silhouettes (although my eyes could pick out more detail than the camera could). The moon was super-bright, and you end up with this blown out moon shot that looks terrible. It doesn't look like this to my eyes, but this is what the camera sees.
How to fix it?
1. I put my camera on a tripod and framed the photo, trying to get a nice balanced composition.
2. First, focus on the palm trees (or whatever foreground you are using). If necessary, add a little light. I used a headlamp to light up the palm trees a bit, but a flashlight works too. Take the photo. If the light is too much or too little, adjust and take another photo. You have to be careful not to over do it with the light. I also had my fingers crossed that I wasn't freaking out my neighbors. They might have been wondering why the weirdo next door was shining a powerful light into their backyard at night!
3. Next, without moving the camera, adjust the focus and exposure for the moon. The exposure will be much, much less because the full moon is so bright. Focus will be at or close to infinity. Take a second photo.
4. Layer the palm tree photo with the moon photo in PhotoShop (or similar) and it should give you a nice image with everything in focus and a balanced exposure. It's much closer to what your eyes actually see. Kind of a bummer that you have to go to all this trouble for a moon shot, but it's the only way I know to do it.
Following steps 1-4, here's what I came up with. Look closely and you will even see a few stars! Had the moonrise been earlier in the day, I might have been able to get away with a single image. But when things get dark, the brightness of the moon totally overpowers everything else, and you are forced to blend two photos. Yesterday morning I noticed a very pretty sunrise, so I grabbed my phone and took a quick shot:
I'm spoiled because I'm usually taking these kinds of photos out in the desert, with a nice open sky. This was taken in my back yard and houses and trees often get in the way. A beautiful sky nonetheless! Also from my back yard, the red hot poker plants are starting to bloom. I love their wild dayglow colors and that they bloom just before Christmas. They're shaped like little miniature Christmas trees!
Hiking in the local hills the other day, the moon was setting and barely visible. For these "blue sky" moon shots, a single photo is fine. It's plenty bright out so that the moon doesn't overpower everything else like it does when it's dark. These are iPhone photos. I'll leave you with this video of a turkey vulture (I think?) keeping me company on a recent walk in the local hills. It's interesting to me because I can't remember seeing a turkey vulture locally before (although they are common in the desert).
