On Monday, September 8th, the final Super Moon of the year is supposed to happen. We have a pretty good chance of rain on Monday, but I am hoping that the skies stay clear so I can get a photo of the moon just rising over the corn fields. That is the perfect time to capture the Harvest Moon, especially when it is a Super Moon!
I have been working on my evening and night photography over the last year, and that perfect moon shot still eludes me. Part of the fun of digital photography is how quickly you can make adjustments and figure out what your settings should be just by looking at the feedback on your camera. In my haste to get out the door, I forgot to change the white balance from an indoor setting to the one I wanted. When I checked the first photo, it was blue. Had I taken a roll of film, I probably would have been pretty bummed if all my moon photos were the wrong color!
I was using my 55-250 zoom lens, which has a slower shutter speed than my other lenses. To get around that, I played with my settings a little until I got an exposure that was close to what I wanted. I would recommend using a tripod, unlike I did tonight. It will give you more options for settings to get the exposure you desire.
For this photo, I had the camera set in AV mode (Canon) and had the aperture at f/5.6 with a shutter speed of 1/320 sec. My ISO was at 400, since I was not using a tripod. To compensate for the bright moon, I dialed my exposure compensation down to -4.7. My zoom was all the way at 250mm, and I cropped the photo to get the moon to the size I wanted for the quote. I cropped and added text in PicMonkey, which is my current favorite quick editing program (it’s all online, super easy to use, and most of it is free!).
I hope some of you will be able to get awesome shots of the September Super Moon!
