Moon shots

[Trent Watts]

A friend and I decided to head out and see if we could get some shots of the moon last night. The night before it was actually full but the clouds obscured the moon.
We found a country elevator and set up to see what would happen. I'm really a greenhorn at this so need lots of advice.
These three shots I felt were the best I had.
C and C welcome.

This with a wide angle from the same road as the other shots.

With a telephoto just as the moon was coming up. I put the moon behind the elevator to get the glow.

I positioned myself so the moon was visible beside the elevator.

 

[AlanLichty]

I like the one with the moon behind the grain elevator. Wonderful light in that one. Telephoto lens make scenes like this fun

 

[Trent Watts]

I like the one with the moon behind the grain elevator. Wonderful light in that one. Telephoto lens make scenes like this fun

Thanks so much Alan.

 

[JimFox]

Looks like you did a great job Trent! I like your idea a lot in #2 about using the moon to get a glow behind the Elevator.

A few thoughts that you may or may not know.

So capturing the moon at 50mm is supposed to make the size of the moon the same as the human eye see's it. I personally think it's closer to 70mm.

Alan mentioned the telephoto lens, so you saw by using a longer lens, the larger the moon is in the frame. Sometimes people cheat and take a wide angle photo of the moon, then take a longer lens to capture the moon and then paste it in to the wider image to make it more dramatic. I am not in favor of that personally. I prefer to just use the longer lens with a subject as you did to make the moon more dramatic.

I like #3, but I wish the moon was higher, closer to the top of the Elevator. Right now to me, #3 almost feels like 2 separate images placed side to side since the moon is not balancing with the Elevator. Now one casualty of letting the moon rise up into that position is it will often lose that cool coloring and some size. But that's where I think the moon would best compliment the scene.

It's great to see you out doing this, I love to capture the moon.

What long lens were you using? I use my Tamron 150-600mm G2.

 

[Trent Watts]

Thanks for the comments and advice Jim. I use the OM-1 micro 4/3 camera so effective focal length is doubled. I used a 7-14 f2.8 for the first shot. My telephoto is the Olympus 150-400 f4.5. I agree with your comments on #3. Things happen pretty fast with the moon rise and I was having trouble focusing and by the time the moon was above the elevator it had lost the dramatic colour and I missed the shot. I used photoshop to create a shot with the moon where I wanted it and the colour. I loved the look of the elevator in this shot as it was like a painting. I agree that it doesn't look real and is always more fun if you can get the shot you want without photoshop.
I really appreciate you helping me with the aspect of photography.

 

[Jon Bev]

These are the kind of shots that deserve exif, some moon shots turn out rubbish, and some are good, a full moon needs buildings or a landscape to complement it in my opinion.

 

[Douglas Sherman]

Excellent, Trent.