Last night, at the volcano…
Posted on September 4, 2013
Milky Way Above Halemaʻumaʻu Crater, Kilauea, Hawaii
Canon EOS 5D Mark III
15 seconds
F/2.8
ISO 3200
16 mm
Sitting here on my balcony above Hilo Bay, it’s hard to believe that 10 days ago I was photographing sunrise lightning on a chilly morning at the Grand Canyon. But there’s Mauna Kea, and over there is Mauna Loa. And it’s 6 a.m. and I’m in shorts and flip-flops, so this really must be Hawaii. Ahhhh.
Oh yeah, it’s all coming back to me…. Last night I took my Hawaii workshop group up to Kilauea to photograph the volcano beneath the stars. I always stress about this shoot in particular because the opportunity to photograph the glow of Halemaumau Crater beneath the Milky Way is what brought many of the workshop participants to Hawaii in the first place. My stress is due to factors largely beyond my control: clouds, inadequate equipment (“The guy at Best Buy said this tripod should be fine”), technical problems (“Oh, I thought a five percent battery charge would be enough”), and just plain user error (“It looked sharp in the LCD”). Each year I do my best to mitigate as many problems as I can: I send copious reminders (“Don’t forget to bring…”) and how-to documents (starting months in advance), give a night photography training session the afternoon of the shoot, do a group equipment set-up and checklist in the parking lot before we walk out to the view point, and frequently check on participants during the shoot. But while all that preparation seems to help, so far I haven’t been able to do anything about the weather. The best I’ve been able to do is time my primary volcano shoot early enough in the workshop to allow us the option of returning in the event of a mass fail.
So yesterday afternoon we drove up to Kilauea, stopping first at the Visitor Center (I’m something of a souvenir T-shirt addict), then walking through the lava tube (always a hit), before wrapping up the daylight portion of the day with a really nice sunset at the Jaggar Museum (the closest point from which to view the caldera). Then we headed to dinner beneath a tantalizing (traumatizing) mix of clouds and sky—were the clouds incoming or outgoing? Dinner was great, but I’d have surely enjoyed it far more if I’d have known we’d leave the restaurant and see starry skies. And stars there were, millions and millions (or so it seemed). Phew.
Once the stars did their part, the rest of the night was up to me—despite all the preparation, I know from experience that basic photography skills such as composition, camera adjustments (even though I’d given everyone starting exposure values in the parking lot, most people usually need to tweak something), and (especially) finding focus, become completely foreign in the near absolute darkness of a moonless night. These problems are compounded by the fact that a flashlight, while necessary to light the path to the location, is absolutely taboo once we’re there (their light can leak into others’ frames, and flashlights make it almost impossible to adjust to the darkness)—instead we rely on the soft glow of our cell phone screen to see our controls.
I started with a test exposure to verify the exposure values I’d had everyone set earlier. So far, so good. Then the real fun began—for the next 45 minutes I bounced from pleading shape to pleading shape (faces are unrecognizable): “My camera won’t focus” (Try auto-focusing on the caldera—if that doesn’t work, we try creative solutions such as auto-focusing on a flashlight 100 feet up the trail or a best-guess manual focus on the caldera rim); “My camera won’t shoot” (Turn off autofocus);“ Is this image sharp?” (Magnify the LCD and zoom in on the stars or caldera wall); “My picture is black” (The correct exposure is 30 seconds, not 1/30 second). And so on. (I should make clear that these problems were more an indication of the disorientation caused by the darkness than a reflection of the photographer’s skill.)
But slowly the cries for help turned to exclamations of joy as successful images started popping up on LCDs. Pretty soon I was wandering around looking for someone who needed help, anyone…. When it finally became clear that my offers to help were more of a distraction, I returned to my camera (no small feat in the dark) and tried a few frames of my own. While I had no illusions of getting anything new (or even anything much different than what others had), I tried several variations. Most of my images were oriented vertically to maximize the length of the serpentine Milky Way, and to minimize the black void surrounding the glowing crater. I also varied my focal length a bit, and played with my ISO and shutter speed settings so I could choose later (with the benefit of a larger screen) between more noise, less star motion and vice versa.
In addition to the photography, I always make a point to stop everyone and remind them to simply appreciate what we’re viewing. The orange glow is molten rock, the newest material on the Earth’s surface; overhead are pinpoints of starlight that originated tens, hundreds, even thousands of years ago. It’s both humbling and empowering.
We finally wrapped up a little before 11. Everyone seemed quite happy (okay, downright giddy) with what they’d gotten. At breakfast this morning a few people said they’d checked their images after returning to the hotel, but most said they just collapsed into bed. Nevertheless, I’m already starting to receive whispered requests to return to Kilauea one more time. I won’t take a lot of convincing.
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:: Join me next year as we do this all over again in the 2014 Hawaii Big Island Volcanoes and Waterfalls photo workshop ::
It’s more than a hole with red rocks
Posted on September 1, 2013
Wildflowers and Aspen, North Rim, Grand Canyon
Canon EOS 5D Mark III
1/80 second
F/4
ISO 200
32 mm
Still charged with energy from the Grand Canyon lightning/rainbow Three Strikes morning, I decided to change things up and visit some of the trip’s more intimate, albeit less spectacular, images, scenes that portray the underrated diversity of the Grand Canyon’s beauty. Despite a wealth of options, I knew immediately that I wanted to start with a wildflower discovery the second group made at East Rim View. (Actually, credit for the discovery goes to workshop co-leader Don Smith.) Don and I had been at this spot on a scouting trip a few days before the workshops began, immediately recognizing it as the best location to combine the North Rim’s beautiful wildflower display with a more expansive view of the Grand Canyon and (especially) the Vermillion Cliffs. While we liked the view enough to stage both workshop group-photos here, we nevertheless tried to time our visits for the overcast skies and calm winds that make for the best wildflower photography.
As the group slowly trickled back to the the cars around the prescribed departure time, Don and a couple of participants returned with word of a wildflower discovery in the woods just a few hundred yards up the trail. The description sounded too good to be true, but when Don shared a few LCD previews of what he’d found, I was sold. So, after a quick consultation, Don and I jettisoned Plan A and added another hour to our East Rim View stay. Good call.
What we found was everything promised: a mature, sprawling aspen grove, carpeted with a dense array of yellow, daisy-like wildflowers (I don’t know what these flowers are, but I’m sure some reader will illuminate me). Virtually untouched by wind and evenly illuminated beneath a heavy, gray sky, this was macro photography heaven. But rather than do the obvious and pull out my macro lens and extension tubes, I decided to do the entire shoot with my 70-200 and 16-35 lenses, playing with compression, perspective, and depth. Using my 70-200, I compressed the background (made it appear closer to my subject than it really was); getting up-close with my 16-35, I emphasized the foreground and expanded the background. I also had tons of fun playing with depth of field—when I found a composition I liked, I ran entire range of f-stops, from f2.8 to f22, in one-stop increments. After reviewing these images on a big screen, I decided I prefer the narrow DOF frames for the way they guide the eye where I want it to go, rather than distract with the extraneous background detail the small aperture frames displayed.
I find it a bit ironic that, while intimate images like those in here are usually far more reflective of a photographer’s skill and creativity than the spectacular moments captured in scenes like the Three Strikes image, it’s the spectacular that commands the most attention (just count the number of Facebook “Likes”). In most of my lightning images, the most challenging aspect was being there; on the other hand, these wildflower scenes not only required discovery, most involved contorting while flat on the ground, and each required careful management of every aspect of the scene, from relationships, depth, light, and motion.
The entire group got similar stuff on our lightning morning (while so far I haven’t seen any others who were fortunate enough to get three parallel strikes, that’s exactly what my image was: the good fortune to click at just the right instant). On the other hand, I’m pretty sure nobody else got anything like these wildflower images (nor did I get wildflower images like the others got). So does that mean I like these wildflower images more my “Three Strikes” image? Uh…, no. That was a once-in-a-lifetime capture that every landscape photographer dreams of. But I think ultimately I take more pride in the skill and effort required to craft something like these.
Forest Wildflowers, North Rim, Grand Canyon
Canon EOS 5D Mark III
1/100 second
F/4
ISO 200
200 mm
The reason I do this
Posted on August 27, 2013
Three Strikes, Bright Angel Point, North Rim, Grand Canyon
Canon EOS 5D Mark III
1/3 second
24-105L
ISO 100
F11
August 2013
Nature photographers plan, and plan, and plan some more, but no amount of planning can overcome the fickle whims of Mother Nature. Few things are more disappointing than a long anticipated and perfectly executed shoot washed out by conditions beyond my control. But when all of nature’s variables click into place, the world becomes a happy place indeed. And when nature ups the ante by adding something unexpected, euphoria ensues.
Don Smith and I just returned from two weeks photographing the Grand Canyon. We did a little of our own photography on the trip, but the prime focus was our two four-plus day photo workshops, split evenly between the Grand Canyon’s North and South Rims. These workshops were scheduled to give our groups the opportunity to photograph the Grand Canyon, day and night, under the influence of the annual Southwest monsoon: billowing clouds, vivid rainbows, and (especially) lightning. But any workshop requiring specific weather conditions is fraught with uncertainty and anxiety—we were fairly certain the photography would be great (after all, it is the Grand Canyon), but few natural phenomena are more fickle than lightning.
When plotting a workshop schedule (or any landscape photo shoot), the best a photographer can do is maximize the odds: We try to schedule all the non-photography requirements (meals, sleep, travel, training) for the times least likely to conflict with the best photography. For example, we know that because the monsoon thunderstorms usually don’t develop before midday, Grand Canyon summer sunrises often lack the clouds and pristine air necessary for the vivid color photographer’s covet. Therefore our photography emphasis for this workshop is on getting our groups out from mid-morning through (and sometimes after) sunset. That doesn’t mean we blow off sunrise, it just means that the sunrises are generally better for exhausted, sleep-deprived photographers to skip than the sunsets are.
Nevertheless, we rallied the troops at 5 a.m. Friday for our second workshop’s final shoot, a ten minute walk from our rim-side cabins to Bright Angel Point. The forecast was for clear skies, but the workshop had already had so many wonderful shoots, I considered this final one just a little bonus, the cherry atop an already delicious sundae.
My mind was already on the long drive home—in fact, as Don and I exited our cabin in the pre-dawn darkness, I predicted that I wouldn’t even take my camera out of my bag that morning. My words as I turned the doorknob were, “But if I leave my bag here, we’ll probably get lightning and a rainbow.” Little did I know how grateful I’d be to have brought my gear….
What followed was what Don and I later agreed was probably the single most memorable workshop shoot either of us had ever experienced. Gathering in the lobby of Grand Canyon Lodge, we saw lightning flashes across the canyon, but it was impossible to tell in the darkness how far away it was. Hiking to the vista, we saw several distinct bolts stab the rim, and by the time our gear was set up, the show had intensified, delivering numerous violent strikes in multiple directions that illuminated the canyon several times per minute.
The morning’s pyrotechnics continued for over two hours, awing us first in the dark, then through twilight, and finally into and beyond a magenta sunrise. And as if that wasn’t enough, as the sun crested the horizon behind us, a small but vivid fragment of rainbow materialized on the canyon’s rim, hanging there like a target for the lightning to take potshots at it.
This was more than just good photography, this was a once-in-a-lifetime convergence of weather, location, and light that more than made up for the many times nature has disappointed. Rather than bore you with more words, here are a few images from that morning:
Lightning Before Dawn, Bright Angel Point, North Rim, Grand Canyon
Arriving on the rim about 45 minutes before sunrise, we found the South Rim under full attack. This 30 second exposure captured a pair of strikes near Mojave Point.
Three Strikes, Bright Angel Point, Grand Canyon
As the sun neared the eastern horizon, I couldn’t help sneaking an occasional peek behind me. Seeing clear skies in the rising sun’s direction, I crossed my fingers for the clouds to hold off long enough to allow the sunlight to illuminate the lightning show before us. As the sun topped the horizon, its rays caught the rain falling along the rim, balancing a nearly vertical section of rainbow atop Powell Point. In this single, 1/3 second exposure, I managed to capture the rainbow briefly sharing the rim with three simultaneous lighting strikes.
Color and Light, Bright Angel Point, North Rim, Grand Canyon
The rainbow persisted as the lightning continued. Confident that I’d captured enough horizontal frames, I switched to a vertical composition in time to catch one more strike with the rainbow.
Storm’s Approach, Bright Angel Point, North Rim, Grand Canyon
As the sun rose, the rocks reddened and the storm edged closer. Ridges visible earlier were slowly overtaken by the advancing rain, and long, rolling waves of thunder echoed overhead. Preceding the rain were billowing clouds; here I went with an extreme wide (17mm) vertical composition to capture the incoming storm skewering the rim with by a single bolt. I had to retreat to shelter shortly thereafter.
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Too close for comfort
Posted on August 22, 2013
Electric Downpour, Point Imperial, North Rim, Grand Canyon
Canon EOS 5D Mark III
Canon 16-35 f/2.8L
1/8 second
F/16
ISO 50
After wrapping up our first Grand Canyon Monsoon workshop, Don Smith and I stayed a couple of extra nights on the North Rim to check-out potential locations for the second workshop. Saturday morning Don and I left our cabin with every intention of scouting (I swear) some remote, west-facing vista points, but black clouds and rolling thunder in the east (which we already knew quite well) gave us pause. The farther we drove, the blacker the clouds became, and the weaker our resolve to go scouting. A jagged bolt on the ridge north and east of the highway (a sign?) was more than enough to convince us to scuttle the scouting plan and beeline to Point Imperial.
With a 200 degree-plus east-facing panorama that includes the Vermillion Cliffs, the Painted Desert, the sheer walls of the Mosaic Canyon, and many named and unnamed red ridges and monuments, Point Imperial is one of my favorite North Rim vistas. By the time we arrived, the lightning was firing every thirty seconds north of us, well beyond the closest ridge. Gear in hand, I scrambled quickly down onto the rocks beneath the designated vista point for a better view—nobody moves faster than a photographer who feels like he’s missing the show (or so I thought). Don, a month out from knee replacement surgery, stayed up above, near the railed vista area.
Soon my Lightning Trigger had my camera firing away, usually at unseen bolts (it detects flashes obscured by clouds, or too distant for the eye), but occasionally at photogenic strikes too distant for the thunder to reach me. For the first thirty minutes the sky overhead was mostly blue and I watched with very little anxiety as the rain curtain with the most activity drifted slowly eastward. But when a thunder clap rolled across my exposed vantage point I glanced upward and saw nothing but angry clouds. So caught up in the awe of the moment, I’d failed to realize that the lightning frequency had intensified, and now some of the ridges I’d been photographing had disappeared behind an advancing downpour that looked that someone had opened a drain in the sky and released all the water in Heaven. Somewhat uncertain of my safety, I found comfort in the knowledge that the vista point above me still teamed with gaping tourists who surely knew better than this life-long California resident.
My comfort turned to concern when a rapid series of pulses drilled all the way down to the canyon floor just off to my right: One-thousand-one, one-thou… Boom! Hmmm. Maybe just a couple more frames…. Then I got the idea that, since it wasn’t raining on the point, I would leave my camera out to capture the action while waited in the car for the lightning to pass. About two steps into my controlled retreat the sky exploded. While I was pretty sure I’d broken land speed records descending the rocks when I arrived, that feat didn’t come close to the speed with which I flew back up to the car. Phew. Then the rain arrived, and suddenly my idea of leaving the camera out didn’t seem quite so brilliant. So, with rain (mixed with marble-size hail) falling, for the second year in a row, I performed a heroic rescue. Once again, with no regard for my personal safety, I dodged raindrops, hailstones, and lightning bolts (well, two out of three) to liberate my camera from the jaws of death.
Shortly thereafter the advancing column of water marched over us and set up camp. We eventually decided to move on to other locations, and while we saw lots of lightning, some of it too close to even start counting the seconds, we weren’t able to find a vantage point far enough removed from the action for photography. But for nearly an hour on Point Imperial, we had it as good as I could have imagined.
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Lightning
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Last Light
Posted on August 16, 2013
Advancing Squall at Dusk, Desert View, Grand Canyon
Canon EOS 5D Mark III
30 seconds
F/14
ISO 200
29 mm
It occurred to me while processing this image that, just like the lightning strike image in my previous post, this was my next-to-last image of the day. Which got me thinking about why I like these late-light images, and also about the similarities and differences between the two images.
Both images were captured in conditions much darker than the final image indicates. In this scene from Desert View on the Grand Canyon’s South Rim, the sunset’s fading vestiges clung to the northeast horizon, while a rain squall swept across the opposite rim. The workshop group had just wrapped up a glorious sunset shoot that included a double rainbow in the east, and fully illuminated, golden curtains of rain in the west. While I have many far more spectacular images from that evening (that I’ll no doubt get to eventually), there was something about the quiet of the rim after most of the photographers and sunset gawkers had vacated, that caused me to keep shooting in the gathering darkness.
As with Saturday night’s lightning image, the canyon’s color this evening was no longer visible, but it was still light enough to make out definition in the walls all the way down to the twisting Colorado River. And unlike the lightning shoot, when I was tense with anticipation of the next strike, my feeling this evening at Desert View was one of utter calm. I’d found my scene, the light was fading gradually, and all I had to do was wait for the advancing rain squall to move into my frame. Sublime.
Grand Canyon monsoon
Posted on August 12, 2013
Twilight Lightning, Roosevelt Point, Grand Canyon North Rim
Canon EOS 5D Mark III
8.6 minutes
F/8.0
ISO 200
85 mm
After a marathon drive (that included four states and one unscheduled visit with a Utah Highway Patrol officer) from Northern California to St. George, Utah, Don Smith and I arrived at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon on Saturday afternoon. Our goal was advance scouting for our back-to-back Grand Canyon Monsoon workshops, which start this afternoon (Monday). Though we’re both pretty familiar with the North Rim, we wanted to check the conditions there (the wildflowers are gorgeous right now), and since these would be our first workshops at the North Rim, we also wanted to get a better handle on the drive times to our various locations.
Another motive was to scrape the rust on our lightning triggers, which hadn’t been used since last summer. Unfortunately, the Grand Canyon weather reports were less than promising, so when we headed out to shoot sunset Saturday night, lightning wasn’t on our mind. But shortly after arriving at our sunset destination, Walhalla Point, we saw a bolt strike across the canyon, above the Painted Desert. So out came the lightning triggers, and we spent the entire shoot bouncing between the (occasional) lightning in the east and truly gorgeous sunset color and sidelight along the rim to the south.
Don and I had much better luck with the sunset than we did with the lightning triggers (it turns out the rust was more on the photographers than the triggers). Our lightning attempts targeted one area in particular, but as the light faded, so did the lightning our target zone, and we became resigned to chalking this first night up to experience. But about the time we were ready to wrap up (ever notice how many stories of successful images start with those words?), we started seeing more lightning strikes farther north. Though it was getting cold up there at 9,000 feet, we thought we’d give it one more shot and move a few miles north to Roosevelt Point.
Twilight was in full bloom by the time we arrived at Roosevelt Point; fortunately, so was the lightning. I started with my lightning trigger, but soon switched it off in favor of long exposures. It seemed that one out of every two or three 30-second exposures seemed to capture a bolt, but with the light fading quickly, I needed to adjust my exposure after each frame. Soon I found myself in bulb mode, with exposures measured in minutes. The image here is my penultimate frame, a nearly nine-minute exposure captured forty-five minutes after sunset. The long exposure was able to wring out just enough light to reveal detail in the canyon. (The final frame, though exposed 2 1/3 stops brighter, was even darker than this one.)
This image perfectly illustrates the difference between the camera’s reality and ours. The scene my eyes saw was dark: not only was the Grand Canyon’s rich red completely lost to my eyes, its ridges and chasms were reduced to barely perceptible dark shapes. And the bolts you see here were not simultaneous—the one on the right fired early in the exposure, the two on the left came together toward the end. But through my camera’s unique vision, I was able to reveal the Grand Canyon in a way we human’s can only imagine.
Favorite: The Big Dipper
Posted on August 6, 2013
Big Dipper, Alabama Hills, California
Canon EOS-1D Mark II
20 seconds
F/2.8
ISO 200
25 mm
I’ve decided to turn my new Favorites gallery into an irregular series on each of the images there.
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This image of the Big Dipper above moonlit granite boulders in the Alabama Hills will always have a special place in my heart because it was my first moonlight “success.” I was still coming to terms with the low light capabilities of digital photography, and figured that a full moon over the Alabama Hills might be a good opportunity to play. I was in Lone Pine with my brother to explore the endless daylight possibilities among the weather granite boulders just west of town.
Jay and I started that night by simply photographing the Sierra crest, anchored by Lone Pine Peak and Mt. Whitney, from the side of the road. It wasn’t long before I was confident that I had the exposure settings right (arriving through trial and error at the moonlight exposure recipe I still use), and we soon set out for less prosaic surroundings, ending up in a box canyon at the end of an obscure spur off (unpaved) Movie Road. All of my attention was on Lone Pine Peak and Mt. Whitney in the west, but while waiting for an exposure to complete, I noticed the Big Dipper suspended above the northern horizon.
I wish I could say this composition was divine inspiration fueled by my innate artistic instincts, but it was more of a casual click using a couple of anonymous boulders whose prime attraction was their convenience. Focus was tricky, and while I don’t specifically remember all my decisions, I know I must have realized that sharp foreground rocks trumped sharp stars (that would be moving slightly anyway). I’ve done enough moonlight photography since to know that while manual focus in the dark is difficult, it’s not impossible. Finding focus involves rapidly twisting the focus ring in decreasing concentric arcs around the point where the target “feels” sharp—subsequent experience has taught me that (for me at least) the results are usually better than I fear they are. And of course it doesn’t hurt that even at f2.8, 25mm gives me quite a bit of depth of field.
I remember thinking when the image popped up on the postage-stamp LCD of my 1D Mark II, “That’s pretty cool.” But I couldn’t have been too impressed because I only took two frames before returning to the (ultimately forgettable) Sierra compositions. The next memory I have is looking at my images on my laptop later that night—it was quite clear that this image was my favorite, by a long-shot, and I wished I’d have tried more. I’ve tried unsuccessfully to find these boulders on subsequent visits, but I haven’t given up. I can’t even say that I’d photograph them again, but I’d at least love to see them once more.
We photograph the Alabama Hills in my Eastern Sierra photo workshop—click for details
Picking favorites
Posted on August 1, 2013
First Light, Yosemite Valley
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III
3/10 second
F/16.0
ISO 100
65 mm
A few weeks ago I added a Favorites gallery to my website, which of course forced me to make all kinds of difficult choices. First I had to figure out what “favorite” means. Is the gallery going to represent my favorites, or will it be the images that sell best (often not the same thing)? My mercenary instincts told me that, since this is page allows people to click to purchase ($$$), I should go with the bestsellers. But when I decided to make my living with photography, I vowed to only photograph what I want to photograph, and to never base my decisions on what will sell.
While things became easier once I decided to go with my personal favorites, that decision put me in something of a Sophie’s Choice quandary. I really never select any image to display unless I like it a lot, but if I want to keep my Favorites gallery down to a manageable number, I need to choose my favorite “children.” (It occurs to me in hindsight that choosing a favorite image by what sells best would be kind of like choosing a favorite child based on who gives the best presents. Hmmm….)
Once I hardened myself to the process (sorry kids), it became an enlightening exercise that, among other things, showed me how my style has evolved. Disabling the analytical side of my brain and going with “feel” enabled me to revisit my entire portfolio with new eyes, to shed old biases and reject images that had become default favorites, in favor of images for which I discovered a new affinity.
It also became clear to me that “favorite” is a moving target—what I choose today isn’t necessarily what I’ll choose tomorrow. (I’ve even made a few changes as I work on this post.) I plan to make this a pretty dynamic gallery, so please feel free to visit often (no purchase necessary).
First Light, Yosemite Valley
Labeling the image in this post a “favorite” was a no-brainer—it’s always been a personal favorite, and it has become one of my top sellers (not to mention my WordPress avatar). And even though Tunnel View images are a dime a dozen, this was a special, one-of-a-kind spring morning that I never tire of revisiting.
I was there with a workshop group, and if memory serves, we’d had a nice sunrise shoot, but nothing truly unique. The air was crystal clear and quite cold for April, still enough to allow the moist valley air to condense into a radiant fog that hugged the floor, ebbing and flowing like liquid. As the sky brightened we photographed a pink veneer of translucent clouds, a particular treat for those who’d never been to Yosemite.
When the color started to fade, I was about to move the group on to our next location when a brightness behind Sentinel Dome caught my attention. So I waited. And as we watched, the light intensified, expanding before our eyes into a diaphanous film that spread a buttery glow that turned our world into an amber light box. I captured several frames; this is my favorite.
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Moon over wherever
Posted on July 26, 2013
Winter Moonrise, Half Dome, Yosemite
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III
1/6 second
F/11.0
ISO 100
188 mm
Often, including a rising or setting moon will turn an ordinary landscape into something special. Of course, like most things worth doing, moon photography adds a couple of layers of complication: First, there’s the matter of getting there at the right time, with the moon in the right place (it does little good to arrive as the moon rises if it’s skewed 90 degrees from the scene you came to photograph); and once you have everything lined up, you still have to contend with the almost always tricky exposure issues.
A little lunar geometry (you can skip this section of you’re more interested in “how” than “why”)
Many factors, some within our control, some completely beyond our control, determine the time, location, and phase of the moon at any time. The factors beyond our control are things like the earth’s rotation and the moon’s orbit, which determine the moon’s phase and its absolute position in the sky. On the other hand, we can control our location, and take the steps necessary to get us in the right place at the right time.
A full moon always rises and sets directly opposite the sun, rising in the east at sunset and setting in the west at sunrise. This actually makes perfect sense when you take a little time to understand the monthly choreography of the earth, moon, and sun. Just as the earth revolves around the sun, the moon revolves around the earth; at any point in this dance, half of the earth is lit (daytime) and half of the earth is dark (nighttime), half of the moon is lit and half of the moon is dark.
What we on earth see as a full moon is simply that one day each month that the moon’s entire lit side faces the earth’s dark side—that is, when the earth is directly between the sun and the moon (picture a beam of light that follows a straight line that starts at the sun, passes through earth, and ends on the moon). On that day only, as the point of your location on earth rotates from day to night, you’ll see the sun disappear in the west and the moon rise in the east. As the earth keeps rotating away from daylight and into night, the full moon rises higher and higher, reaching its highest point around midnight, then dropping as your location rotates back toward the sunlit side (and sunrise).
So then why do we rarely see a full moon rising exactly as the sun sets? That’s because: 1) the point of maximum fullness (when the sun, earth, and moon align perfectly) only happens at one instant each month—at every other instant of each month’s full moon day, the moon is only almost full (but still full enough to appear completely full); and 2) sun/moon rise/set times we see published always assume a flat horizon—if you have mountains between you and the horizon, your view of the actual sun/moon rise/set will be blocked.
Due to its monthly orbit about the earth, each day (or night) the moon rises a little later and gains or loses a little bit of its disk (the farther it has revolved from that sun->earth->moon line, the less of the moon’s lit side we see). So the night after the moon is full, it rises after sunset and is a little less full. The next night it rises a little later still, and is even less full, and so on. Eventually (in a little more than two weeks after it was full) the moon has revolved all the way around the earth until it lies between the earth and sun (now our imaginary line goes sun->moon->earth); all of its sunlit side faces away from the earth and we have a new (invisible) moon.
We call the moon “new” because the night before it disappears into the sun, all that was left of the shrinking moon (that was completely full about two weeks ago) was a small sliver that shined briefly on the eastern horizon just before sunrise, then disappeared as soon as the sky brightened (it’s still up there, but completely overpowered by the sun’s brightness). The next day the moon won’t appear at all because seeing it would require looking directly into the sun; but the following day, there it is, this time as a thin sliver on the western horizon immediately after sunset (again, it was up there most of the day, we just can’t see it until the sun sets and the sky darkens). This brand new crescent slips below the horizon shortly after it appears. And for the next two-plus weeks it will rise a little later, and grow a little larger, each night, until it’s full again and rising at sunset. Cycle complete.
If we do the math (this won’t be on the test), we can infer that if the moon takes 29.5 days to complete its cycle (from full to new and back to full), and there are 24 hours in a day, the moon must be rising about 50 minutes later each day (29.5/24=48.8). This rough approximation varies with many factors; for simplicity I usually round it to an hour when I do rough calculations in my head. And I always rely on much more precise software or astronomical charts for my critical calculations.
Locating the moon
Those who don’t do a lot of moon photography are amazed at how much the moon shifts above the landscape throughout the year—you can sight a full moon rising between Half Dome and El Capitan one month, and a few months later it’ll be rising above Leaning Tower (far to the south). Fortunately, like many things in nature that appear random to the uninformed, there is actually nothing random about the moon’s location once you take the time to figure it out.
If the idea of figuring anything saps the pleasure from your photography (or sends you into a panic), you’ll be happy to know that sometimes it’s enough to simply know that the moon will be rising in the east a little before sunset (this info is available in many places, in many forms, but the most complete source I’ve found is the US Naval Observatory website). Armed with that knowledge, you can go out to a location with a view of the western horizon, wait for the moon to appear, and start shooting.
On the other hand, juxtaposing the moon with a specific landmark requires more planning. And because its position is so not random, many others have done the heavy lifting for the rest of us. There are far too many moon phase/position resources to name even a small percentage of them, so rather than even try, I’ll just give you a couple of techniques, and the tools that enable them:
- My old fashioned way (old trick for an old dog): I figured out my technique for locating the moon long before computer software and smartphone apps took away most of the effort. Nevertheless, I continue to do it this way because I’ve already done all the hard work (figuring out how to do it), and I can do it in the field, with zero connectivity (no wifi or cell signal required). After relying for years on a the US Naval Observatory website for the info I need (moon phase and moon/sun rise, set, altitude, and azimuth), I now get all the pertinent data from my Focalware iPhone app (I never said I’m opposed to new technology), plugging it into my National Geographic Topo! (that’s NG’s exclamation point, not mine) mapping software (discontinued) to plot the direction of the moon’s rise/set. To determine when the moon will appear above (or disappear behind) the surrounding terrain, I plug distance and elevation information from Topo! into the trigonometric functions of my HP 11C scientific calculator (originally an actual calculator, but now also an iPhone 11C emulation app) to compute the elevation in of my horizon.
- Software (the better way for 99.999 percent of you): The Photographer’s Ephemeris (a free computer download or fairly inexpensive smartphone app) is the most complete solution that I know of (though I’m sure there are others I don’t know of)—I probably would have never taken the time to figure out my technique if TPE had been available. Not only does TPE give you the sun and moon’s location and elevation above the flat horizon, it also figures out the the actual (terrain included) horizon. The downside is that because it uses Google Maps, TPE requires connectivity and is better used in advance of your shoot (usually not a problem). Recent TPE versions also allow you to download the maps to your device for offline access—if I were a TPE user, I’d be doing this before every trip.
Exposure
My rule for photographing a rising/setting full moon is that I must capture detail in the landscape and the moon. If my landscape is black (or just too dark), or my moon is a white disk (or blob), my image has failed. But since the post-sunset landscape is in full shade, and the moon is as bright as a sunlit landscape (because it is a sunlit landscape), the dynamic range of a full moon scene is pretty extreme, often too extreme for a camera to handle with a single click (always my goal).
But here’s the great part—if you figure that the moon rises about an hour later each day, and the full moon rises at sunset, then it stands to reason that the day before it’s full the moon will rise about an hour before the sun sets. Factoring in the terrain on the horizon (and assuming you’re not at the base of a mountain), that means that the day before the moon is full is the best opportunity to photograph a nearly full (say 97%, give or take a percent or two) moon rising in the east above a landscape painted with the warm sunlight of the golden hour. Conversely, if your view is to the west, you can photograph a nearly full moon setting in warm sunrise light the day after it’s full. Either way, the day before or after the full moon gives you everything you need to capture your scene in nice, photographable light that’s still sufficient to hold the moon’s highlights at bay.
I’ve found that if I’m really careful with my exposure, I can usually capture enough foreground and lunar detail until five or ten minutes after sunset. Shooting after sunset usually requires raw capture, then massaging the dark foreground brighter, and bright moon darker, in the raw processor. A graduated neutral density filter can increase this threshold to maybe fifteen or twenty minutes after sunset—after that my foreground is unusably dark (or my moon is recoverably bright).
Another technique that works when the light gets too extreme is a composite—two images, one exposed for the landscape and the other exposed for the moon, combined in Photoshop. In the “Rules According to Gary,” this isn’t cheating if you don’t change the size or position of the moon. (Though it doesn’t break my rules, I no longer do composites because I have this weird compulsion to get everything with one click.)
The final piece of exposure advice I’ll add is to make sure your camera’s blinking highlights (also called highlight alert) are set (as far as I’m concerned, they should be set anyway because I see no downside to highlight alert). The moon is usually so small in your frame that it won’t register in the histogram, which means blinking highlights are usually the only way to know that you’re blowing out the moon. I monitor my highlights closely after each exposure and have found that, when shooting raw (jpeg shooters don’t have as much margin for error), I can usually recover enough detail with an exposure 2/3 to 1 stop brighter than the exposure that first showed blinking.
Just do it
Like most things photographic, don’t expect resounding success the first time you try adding a full moon to your landscape. But each time you go out, not only will you improve, you’ll probably come away with ideas for how to do it differently the next time.
Read more about moon photography
The Moon: (Sometimes) Size doesn’t matter
Posted on July 21, 2013
Goodnight Moon, Sierra Foothills, California
Canon EOS SL1
8/5 seconds
F/5.6
ISO 100
300 mm
A few years ago I proposed an article to “Outdoor Photographer” magazine on photographing the moon. The editor at the time (not the current OP editor) replied that moon photographs don’t work because the moon appears so much smaller in a photograph than people remember it. I couldn’t argue—the moon does indeed look smaller in a photograph than we perceive it in person. But I’ve never thought the moon needs to appear large to be an effective subject because its emotional power gives even the smallest moon enough visual weight to grab the eye and hold a disproportional segment of the frame. Ansel Adams certainly had this figured out, making a small moon the prime focal point of many images, including the image that’s arguably his most famous, “Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico.” Nevertheless, it took a new editor to finally get OP to acknowledge that size doesn’t matter and publish my “Shoot the Moon” article.
Today, more photographers than ever are using a small moon to accent familiar landscapes. But as nice as these images can be, sometimes it’s nice to make the moon BIG. I’m afraid the vast majority of images displaying a BIG moon looming over an iconic scene are composites, wide compositions with a telephoto moon superimposed on top. My feeling about these moon composites ranges from “Ugh,” when the photographer has at least had the integrity to label it a composite, to “Foul!,” when the photographer pretends that the entire scene was captured with a single click.
Your ability to enlarge the moon naturally (with a single click) is determined by the amount of telephoto you use: The longer your focal length, the larger your moon. But increasing the focal length shrinks the field of view, so matching a large moon with a particular scene requires positioning yourself a long way from the scene. For example, if I want to photograph the moon rising above Lake Tahoe, Tahoe’s size means I’m pretty much stuck with a wide angle (small moon) scene. In the Emerald Bay sunrise scene below, I was about a half mile from the lake, but even at 40mm I’m unable to fit all of the bay, and the moon is quite small.
Moonrise, Emerald Bay, Lake Tahoe
On the other hand, Yosemite Valley offers many distant vantage points that allow me to isolate Half Dome or El Capitan with a telephoto lens. I make a point of knowing when I can align a crescent or full moon with Half Dome and do my best to get myself (or a workshop group) there to photograph it. The image here is a 400mm (full frame) shot that completely isolates Half Dome from the rest of the scene.
New Day, Half Dome and Crescent Moon, Yosemite
Compare it to the image taken from the same location—at 105mm, Half Dome shrinks and the moon becomes an accent in a much larger scene.
Rising Crescent, Yosemite Valley
The image at the top of this frame perfectly illustrates my approach to moon photography. Because I can’t always get to Yosemite (and I like some variety in my images), I keep a mental database of nearby locations that align with a subject I can silhouette against the east or west horizon (the general direction of the moon’s rise and set) when viewed from a distant vantage point. Near the top of my list is a pair of trees topping a hill in the foothills east of Sacramento (the same trees featured in my July 12 post). Not only can I photograph these trees against the sky, from a distance, the ability to shift a fairly good distance north or south without losing my view of the trees allows me to juxtapose them against the moon, which shifts a significant amount from month to month.
The July 12 image was photographed the same night at 330mm with my full frame 5D Mark III; today’s image was photographed at 300mm with a 1.6 crop camera, for an effective focal length of 480mm. I plan to return to this spot a few more times for even tighter (larger moon) captures. I’d also like to try some with the full moon—since the view here is to the west, I’ll need to photograph the full moon when it sets at sunrise. Stay tuned….
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About my new camera
Some photographers may be mortified to see that I shot this with a Canon Rebel SL1. For those who don’t know, the Rebel line is Canon’s entry level, consumer camera (by inference, something no self-respecting pro would ever be caught dead using). But, while the Rebel cameras have some limitations, image quality isn’t one of them. So here’s my reasoning.
For about a year my primary camera has been my 5D Mark III. While the 5DIII gives me more dynamic range and better high ISO performance than my five year old 1DSIII, rather than sell the 1DSIII (still a great camera), I decided to keep it as a backup. Unfortunately, it’s also a brick, an absolute pain to lug around in the remote chance my 5DIII goes down. And its an even bigger pain to fly with.
Another problem with my 1DSIII as my prime backup is, like my 5DIII, it has a full frame sensor. I prefer having a “crop” (smaller sensor) body as my backup, because it gives me something I don’t have with a full frame (60% more reach from my lenses). So when I heard about Canon’s SL1, I checked it out and learned: It takes all my lenses; has an 18mp sensor; and is incredibly compact, hands down the tiniest SLR I’ve ever seen (if I didn’t shoot everything on a tripod, I might find it almost too small to shoot). It’s also only $650. So I bought one.
Now my 1DSIII will still travel with me wherever I drive (as will my 5DIII and my SL1), because I’ll have room. And if my 5dIII ever goes down for an extended period, my 1DSIII will become my primary body until the 5DIII returns to health. But when I fly anywhere, it’ll just be my 5DIII and my SL1. And in those situations where I want to carry two cameras in the field—for example, when I photograph the moon and want both wide and long shots—the tiny SL1 will always be the second camera. (So I guess size also matters when I’m choosing a backup camera.)
Epilogue: The image in this post was captured on my very first shoot with the SL1, and I’m happy to report that it performed wonderfully.
Eloquent Images by Gary Hart 