The Super Moon, created when the new moon occurs when the lunar apogee, or is it the lunar perigee, oh, forget it, who cares? Anyway, the moon is closer to the Earth. I had decided not to photograph it because we are in the midst of an unseasonal summer rain that brought clouds and overcast skies to the area Sunday and I thought the moon would be obscured. I looked outside about 10PM and the moon, appearing a bit larger (I think the actual super moon occurred at moonrise a couple hours earlier) was unobscured with a cloudy background, the light of the moon reflecting off the clouds. I set up with my 70-300mm lens and discovered that I have no idea how to capture clouds while photographing the moon and retaining its detail. I should have taken one shot of the clouds and one shot of the moon and merged them in Photoshop but since my Photoshop skills are lacking, I didn’t think I would succeed if I tried that. The other thing about the Super Moon is that it really only appears to be “super-sized” in photographs when other things are in the shot, like a bridge or a mountain top. Photographing the already risen moon from my front walkway resulted in yet another ordinary moon shot. At least this time, I got a few clouds for added interest.
I took the first shot at my normal “moon shot setting” which is the Sunny 16 rule, ISO 100, f/16, 1/100. I added a bit of clarity and contrast. The clouds do not show at all. I took the second shot at ISO 100, f/11, 1/100, adding some clarity and increasing exposure by 5 full stops. This brought out the cloud detail and surprisingly, because the clouds were drifting in front of the moon when I took the shot, some of the moon detail as well. I increased the luminance to get rid of some of the noise in the clouds.
Love that spooky one!