How to take the best photos of Monday’s supermoon
After every supermoon, Twitter and Facebook are flooded with fuzzy photos of white glowing orbs kind of floating in a black sea of night.
But there are ways to take a good photo of the moon, even with a smartphone.
Monday's supermoon will be the closest in its orbit to Earth since 1948. It becomes full Monday morning.
A super moon rises over the Boynton Beach Inlet in Boynton Beach, Florida on September 8, 2014. (Allen Eyestone / The Palm Beach Post)
"Don't make the mistake of photographing the moon by itself, with no reference to anything," Bill Ingalls, a senior photographer for NASA, told National Geographic. "Instead, think of how to make the image creative — that means tying it into some land-based object. It can be a local landmark or anything to give your photo a sense of place."
The moon begins to set behind the First Baptist Church during a lunar eclipse, October 8, 2014, in West Palm Beach. (Greg Lovett / The Palm Beach Post)
Here are a few tips from Palm Beach Post photographer Lannis Waters that were first gathered by Palm Beach Post staff writer Staci Sturrock during supermoon events in 2014.
- Start early. If you're using a smartphone, try to capture the moon when it's still near Earth's horizon, and find something to frame it with in the foreground (trees, buildings, people). "That will help with your exposure because there should still be some light in the sky, and add interest," Waters says.
- Go long. Using a DSLR? "Obviously, shoot with as long a lens as possible," Waters says. "A tripod will help, and is necessary if you're using a very long lens. Ditto for a cable release or self-timer to avoid adding any vibrations when you fire a frame."
- Look for foreground interest.You can't go wrong composing your photo with either the Lake Worth or Juno Beach pier in the foreground. "Around here, it's hard to find a place where you can get far enough back to make a skyline work, but there are places where you could get the moon rising through a stand of trees or over buildings, but you need to search for those in advance," Waters says. (Jupiter Lighthouse, we're looking at you.)
- Tap into an app. Waters likes the SkyView app, "which gives you an Augmented Reality view of the sky, and lets you type in the time and date you want so you can see where the moon will be at that time."
- Make manual adjustments. Forgo your camera's automatic settings and use the back of your camera to judge your exposure. "Otherwise the dark sky can make your shot overexposed," Waters says. "And since the moon is reflecting daylight, the exposure is near what it would be for a sunlit scene in the daytime, so you don't need a high ISO."
(Greg Lovett / The Palm Beach Post)
