With the moon due to be at its closest approach since 1992, and therefore its biggest size in the sky, I decided I'd try to get a decent picture of it. I decided I'd do this only on the day, so the evening was spent trying to work out what I wanted and how to go about photographing what I was seeing in my mind's eye.
And then adapting it as things didn't work out...
What did I want to see? The moon on its own, big in the frame, is spectacular but (weather permitting) is generally photographable several times a year. The supermoon is bigger, but only by 14%, so it's not really noticeable. What I needed to do was to put it in context, in the sky with something recognisable below it. Moonrise means that you've more choice of things to put underneath it, but, for reasons below, I opted to try something a bit different...
More after the break.
First problem was simply that, at moonrise, 6.45'ish, I was otherwise occupied. Also, I decided that I wanted the crispest, cleanest moon I could get, which meant that it had to have lifted out of the worst of the atmospheric distortion.
Hmmm, what to put under it if it needs to be higher in the sky? Looking at the moon as it rose across the rooftops, I suddenly realised that the rooftops were the thing to put it in context. (Duurr...!). Right, game on.
First, sort out what lens I needed to use - D3 and 300 plus 2x converter gave me a decent sized moon. Since the moon is sunlit, I could stop the lens down enough to allow for the converter "softness". Would this still allow the street lights to illuminate the rooftops at the shutter/aperture combinations I would be using?
No. Damn it! I can see the rooftops and chimneys through the viewfinder - just - but the human eye and brain is better than even a D3 sensor. Game off?
Aha! Flash! I have recently stumped up for a set of PocketWizard TTL radio triggers. So an SB900 was set up on a light stand, zoomed to 200mm with an amber gel (sort of matching the street lighting) across the road. I decided I needed to use my own roof and chimney to avoid any offence to the neighbours and any ... ah... Constabulary delays which might result... Zap! And Aha! A visible chimney and roofline at exposure settings for a good moon. It was still a bit dark, but with the ISO low I could do a little post-production lifting. Now, where's the moon going to track across, and when?
An hour's checking and pondering reveals another problem - the moon's going to be too high to use my own chimney and roof. Or rather by the time it's in a position I can use, it will be too late. (Yeah, yeah, yeah, I could stay up, but I'd rather not be zapping roofs at 3.00am.)
I don't want to let this go with nothing, so some hurried thought has me in the back garden, SB900 pointed at a neighbour's tree (it means the flash points well away from their house). I am contorted on the ground, 300 + 1.4x converter now, with the D3 on DX crop to give me the perceived reach, the SB900 is about 2 metres above me, and 30° away to the left and forward. It's firing at full power and AT LAST I can get something. It's still not quite there - I can't get the tree as bright as I want, at an exposure that puts the moon at the brightness I am looking for. In the end I settle for a compromise exposure, knowing that I can adjust things as I have got both the moon and something recognisably ground-based in the same frame, at about 10.45pm. The final exposure is 1/250th, f7.1, ISO400. This leaves the moon almost, but not quite, burnt out on the raw file, the tree still rather dark, but at only ISO400 I know I can brighten that and not have to worry too much about noise. Time to fire up Aperture.
And thus it was...
I still believe THE shot is with the moon rising over a roofline, chimney pots, etc etc, so I'll be looking for a house that I can borrow, safely, to light the roof at night - I need one where the roofline runs more north-south, rather than mine which is east-west. I'll use two SBs for more coverage and probably the 300 and 1.7x converter. I now know that the idea works in principle, let's hope the weather cooperates...
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