P#6 Q#4b: What Other Tips Are There For Shooting the Moon?

A photographer's fantasy shot of the moon

Jim Zuckerman: Well, I have in my photo library a folder of the sky. I have a lot of different kinds of skies -- cloudy skies, rainbows, puffy white clouds against a blue sky, a lot of different kinds of moons and lightning shots.

I use these in composites behind all kinds of things, things that I was not able to get for a lot of reasons or just to artistically enhance photographs.

I would suggest if people really like using the moon as a component is that they photograph it in different states. You can photograph the moon, for example, in a blue sky, and you can photograph it as a thin crescent, as a full moon, as a gibbous moon where it's like a three quarter full.

Then you have all these different shots and you expose of course as I have indicated. By the way, even the crescent moon, even though there's less surface area and even though it may be very thin, the exposure is the same as for a full moon.

Audri Lanford: Fascinating.

Jim Zuckerman: Yeah, it is interesting. Then you have a bunch of photographs of the moon. If you want to insert them in to your various landscapes, you can do so.

The biggest thing to watch out for though is to have you size the moon correctly. Don't make it so big that it looks like we're 100,000 miles closer to it. It just doesn't look right.

Yet, people do it all the time.

Let me just add that I'll never be able to take this shot but I think one of the coolest photographs that I can ever imagine at least -- in our solar system -- has got to be standing on the moon of Saturn, it's called Titan. Saturn has this very large moon called Titan.

Imagine standing on the moon and seeing the planet Saturn rise above the horizon. It would take up the entire sky, with the rings and everything. Can you imagine a shot like that?

Audri Lanford: Wow, absolutely.

Jim Zuckerman: Not in my lifetime unfortunately.

Conclusion

Take multiple photos of the moon in different lighting and conditions to insert into other photographs. Make sure you size the moon correctly. And although it's counter-intuitive, remember that the exposure for a crescent moon is the same as for a full moon.