Shooting landscapes by moonlight

On the way back from our Christmas family trip in Las Vegas, we were hanging out at Page Az for the past several days waiting for the snow storm to head east. I met a guy from Long Beach in the parking lot for Horseshoe Bend. I was there for a quick shot. He was planning to carry his gear (8" X 10") studio camera (rail) and film holders to take moon light shots all night long. He said he had calculations for exposure based on the phase of the moon. He showed me a few pictures that he took for his coffee table book project - "The Colorado Plateau by moonlight". I saw the Wave with star trails, Bryce and Zion with star trails and several Lake powell shots by moon light with star trails. Does anyone have these moonlight exposure settings or calculations. His photos were pretty darn cool looking.

If you happen to have a Pocket PC you can get Expose 1.0 here which computes exposure settings for different situations including moonlit scenes.

His book sounds very interesting and I can't wait to see it.

It looks like you had some nice light on that trip. Any other pictures?

I've mostly been learning by trial and err, so I don't have a chart. The moon phase isn't the only thing that determines exposure. As with the sun, if the moon is high in the sky, you can use a shorter exposure than if it is low in the sky. The film and its reciprocity failure are also factors, so experimenting with what works best for your set up might be best (though something like expose 1.0 might be a nice starting guide).

I'm a little surprised he's using an 8x10 camera. I haven't found much difference between night shots with 35mm and medium format. It seems that the limiting factor in quality isn't so much the film grain as it is the really low light that makes rendering details more difficult. Better lens quality can improve things, but 8x10 seems like overkill to me. Mayble I'm wrong, though. I'll have to do a direct test between 35mm & mf to verify this.

Here is a good starting point for digital exposures. I have used it with sucess, then I adjust based on the histogram.

Moony 11 rule.

The moony 11 rule is a modification of the sunny 16 rule for taking photos of the Moon if you haven’t got a light meter.

The rule is quite easy to remember - if you want to take a photo of the Moon set the aperture to f/11 and set the shutter speed to be as near as possible to the reciprocal (1 / x) the film speed. So if you’re using ISO 100 film, for example, you would set the aperture to f/11 and the shutter speed to 1/100 sec. However, since most cameras don’t have a 1/100 sec setting you would set it to the closest shutter speed, which is 1/90 sec.

This rule works because the light output from moon is simply reflected sunlight.

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Wow, you sure know how to select a campground location. Which campground is this? The light on the far cliffs is sublime.

Thanks guys. I think it is a rare event when the light is not nice in this area of Utah. The campground is Wahweap just a few miles north on 89 from the Dam. There is a primitive beach CG a little further north called Lone Rock, but it is right next to an ORV play area.

Grant, the guy said that he uses his 8X10 camera because it locks up tighter and more rigidly than a 4X5 field camera. He has to deal with windy conditions a lot. Therefore, the long 2 hour exposures will result in a sharp positive. He had a bag-bellows and uses Provia and E100 VS.

I got a few 4X5 shots of some hoodoos at sunset. they are on their way to PCraft for processing.

Here is a url to some some suggestions:

http://mkaz.com/photo/tools/moonlight.html

Art L.

Here is another url to some suggestions:

http://home.earthlink.net/~kitathome/LunarLight/moonlight_gallery/index.htm

Art L.

Art, that is a great link! Thanks.

Art,

You be the man! I googled till I was blue in the face and did not get these links

Thanks!

ken