Night photography tips

[Tim Gray]

Paul, I like your crane shot.

 

[colrehogan]

Any tips for shooting a full moon (at night) with a large format camera? I'll be using either HP5+ or TMax 400, I forget which I have loaded at this moment. The full moon is tonight and we might actually have clear skies.

I should clarify a bit. I 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?

 

[Q.G.]

The full moon itself?
Just remember that on the side of the moon facing us, it isn't night tonight, but bright, sun-lit day.
So go out today while the sun is still shining, and get a reading for a bright, sun-lit day.

 

[Fotoguy20d]

If you have light sources in your image and want to get that nice starburst pattern that shows up in Paul's photos, stop down to f11-f16 (may vary depending on your lens).

Dan

 

[keithwms]

Q.G. that's all well and good if we didn't have an atmosphere and if the moon didn't have phases. This question comes up quite often and, without fail, somebody implies that it's always as simple as sunny 16 on terra firma. That's true only when it's true!

Diane, to shoot the moon, just try to short-suit yourself if possible by passing the right cards Oh and spot meter and you will nail it. Remember that for tight crops you need exposures of ~1/320 sec if you want detail in the moon (there will be motion blur otherwise). For loose crops in which the moon is just a smallish part of a landscape then you can get by with much much slower exposures, maybe even 1/60.

To shoot a moonlit landscape, again, why not just meter. Sometimes you will be able to wing it with luny-11 (f/11, 1/ISO)... but sometimes not. Depends how much shadow detail you want, of course!

There is no simple formula; if there were, the photograph probably wouldn't be worth taking.

 

[colrehogan]

Thanks for your reply, Keith. I might have a problem with that shutter speed. My lens' fastest shutter speed is 1/75. I can open it up to f/4.5 however. This is on a whole plate camera (no chance of a close up of the moon with that). I could try a wider angle lens, but I am limited by how much foreground I really want. I have a subject that I can't get close to at the moment because the farmers would get mad if people just walked through their crops. I am photographing from the edge of the field. I will try a different spot based on where the moon is in relation to my subject tonight.

I will try and wing it with the moonlit landscape too. I take notes when I shoot.

 

[keithwms]

So, if the moon is about as big in the frame as that one in Adams' Hernandez shot then you can get by with very long shutter speeds. I go to the faster speeds (1/200 and faster) only if the moon is filling a significant portion of the frame. 1/320 would be for a frame-filling shot with lots of moon detail.

 

[Lee L]

There is no single minimum shutter speed for stopping lunar motion. The defacto standard text for a couple of decades; Michael A. Covington, Astrophotography for the Amateur, page 38 in the section on photographing the moon, says to stop motion blur for any celestial object, including the moon:

The formula to use is:

Longest practical exposure in seconds = 250 ÷ focal length

The exposure for the moon won't be nearly the same as for the moonlit landscape after dusk, you'll have to choose one or the other. You can get a better balance if you shoot at dusk or near sunset.

More useful info on night time landscape photography:
http://www.thenocturnes.com/
http://home.earthlink.net/~kitathome/LunarLight/

Lee

P.S. I see Keith revised his suggestion to take focal length into account as well.

 

[colrehogan]

Thanks Lee. By that formula, I get about .92 sec. shooting a 270 mm lens. Well, I'll see what happens. Then my other problem is getting the lab to print it such that it looks like a night shot. All I need to do is tell them that these are night shots. My test shots came back looking like they were daylight.

 

[Lee L]

Thanks Lee. By that formula, I get about .92 sec. shooting a 270 mm lens. Well, I'll see what happens. Then my other problem is getting the lab to print it such that it looks like a night shot. All I need to do is tell them that these are night shots. My test shots came back looking like they were daylight.

That formula is for stopping the motion to the point that it doesn't blur at all at standard size and viewing distance, and is aimed mostly at 35mm and MF cameras, so you can probably squeeze out a bit longer exposure with 8x10 and less expected enlargement. It does give you a good starting point for defining your own standard to suit your particular use. Have fun. Let us know what you learn.

Lee

 

[keithwms]

Yep the moon is only covering, what, 1 degree or so? So 270 on large format will be quite a wide field of view and you can get by with quite long exposures, and the motion blur won't be evident (unless of course you enlarge tremendously).

Night shots can indeed turn out to look like blah day shots quite easily if you don't let the contrast be represented faithfuly. By that I mean, you simply have to let shadows be shadows. The single biggest mistake with moon shots, as I see them usually, is to overexpose the moon itself (or moonlit objects), so then you wind up with a featureless, glowing white ball, but more importantly the shadows in the surrounding scenery are then lifted up too far and the result can indeed look like daylight.

Not to go too far off topic but it is possible to turn the tables and make a daytime shot look quite a bit like a moonlit shot by building a lot of contrast into the neg and the print. I didn't fully realize this until I did this infrared shot in the woods. Letting shadows drop way down is the key to this effect, I think.

 

[Karmelo.Martin]

I'm also trying to start with night photography.

I think a light meter won't be very useful at night as there is very little light to be metered and it will get fooled easily. There are a few things I will try myself:

a) Braketing. I guess this is the way to go at the beginning till I get a pattern I can follow.
b) Experience. This comes after a lot of a) I'm afraid.
c) The ultimate exposure computer

I will try some of these and see how it gets...

Karmelo

 

[2F/2F]

To get that moon shot using analog methods, you can use a multiple exposure. The landscape lit by the full moon should have a calculated (meaning not factoring in reciprocity failure) exposure of about 15 minutes at f/8, using a 100 film. The moon itself (full) should have an exposure of '125 at f/11 on a clear night. Make the moon shot first, sit around and twiddle your thumbs until it moves out of the composition, then make the shot of the landscape. You can even cheat and use a longer lens to shoot the moon and a wider lens to shoot the landscape.

 

[Lee L]

Yep the moon is only covering, what, 1 degree or so?

Close. ½ degree, on average same as the sun. (With slight variations for non circular orbits).

2F/2F's methods will also work, but you have to watch the apparent lighting direction if you want the moon to look like the light source, and if you make the moon exposure too big with a telephoto relative to the landscape exposure it becomes very unnatural looking. That's not illegal in most states, but you should be aware of it depending on what results you want. I've seen one shot that way (I think posted here on APUG a while back) where the moon is as big as a foreground house and in front of distant mountains.

I have read that older B&W movies created night time from daytime by using a red filter and underexposing. The contrast builds, shadows go very dark, the sky looks darker, etc.

Lee

 

[2F/2F]

I would not use a SUPER long lens to do it...perhaps just double the magnification...and yes, consider where the thing is placed compared to where your shadows will fall. "Natural looking", though? None of it will look natural. I don't know if that is the point anyhow in a landscape lit by the full moon. In fact, I would say that the opposite is the point. Just use your judgment to make the pic you want, whether it is natural looking or not.

 

[colrehogan]

Nope, not necessarily natural looking, more just natural lighting. I'm not sure I can do the changing of the focal lengths on LF. I think it might look really weird. Plus, my long focal length on this camera is only 355 vs the 270 I would use, not much difference, but an interesting thought nonetheless.

 

[2F/2F]

I'm not trying to tell anyone to do anything. I am just listing some tools that can be used. How or whether you choose to employ them to achieve your desired aesthetic values is something that I personally would not attempt to tell you, though there are many who would. I figured it was a given that I was just offering up some techniques without straying into the realm of offering aesthetic advice.

As for the changing of focal lengths, it would look similarly weird on any format.

 

[Q.G.]

To get that moon shot using analog methods, you can use a multiple exposure. The landscape lit by the full moon should have a calculated (meaning not factoring in reciprocity failure) exposure of about 15 minutes at f/8, using a 100 film. The moon itself (full) should have an exposure of '125 at f/11 on a clear night. Make the moon shot first, sit around and twiddle your thumbs until it moves out of the composition, then make the shot of the landscape. You can even cheat and use a longer lens to shoot the moon and a wider lens to shoot the landscape.

I'd do it the other way around: shoot the landscape at dusk, then put in the moon later.

It will always show that it is a cheat, though. The direction of the light will give it away (not just when you shoot at dusk first).

You could also shoot the landscape, including moon, when it isn't dark yet and the moon is already out (or when the moon is still out and it's getting light again).
But only, of course, if you can then still get the moon over the landscape where you want it to be.
You will also need to be far north enough this time of year to have short nights.

 

[2F/2F]

I'd do it the other way around: shoot the landscape at dusk, then put in the moon later.

It will always show that it is a cheat, though. The direction of the light will give it away (not just when you shoot at dusk first).

You could also shoot the landscape, including moon, when it isn't dark yet and the moon is already out (or when the moon is still out and it's getting light again).
But only, of course, if you can then still get the moon over the landscape where you want it to be.
You will also need to be far north enough this time of year to have short nights.

Yes. I like shooting the moon and/or using multiple exposures using dusk light (or early morning light).

It does not look the same as a landscape shot at night and illuminated by the full moon, though. This looks like a very eerie daylight as opposed to a soft dusk light.

Here is a page that I found in a quick search: http://brokentripod.com/MOONLIGHT2/LOTMoon2.html. Unfortunately the pix are of low quality and there is not a ton of technical information, but it gives you the idea.