Night shoot help - image added

Last night I saw a photo op materialize that I have been wanting to do for the last 8 years. The ruins of St Aloysius Church in Morley
http://www.sangres.com/history/coalhistory01.htm on the ranch where we live had the moon positioned perfectly for a night shoot. It was right over the right upper side of the ruins and is in a waning phase which looks so cool. This was a bit after 7pm last night so it was quite dark. The phase is supposed to be about 17% tonight and I'm hoping I can catch a similar scenario. The ruins sit above the level of the nearest road. My questions are how to best shoot this scene so the ruins are a bit illuminated (light painting and how to do it?). Am I going to have to do a composite, ie, shoot the ruins and night sky separate or can I get this in one exposure? I would appreciate any technique suggestions you have for this. Thanks!

Shooting from below with a wide angle lens at 19mm

Another angle from the right side

Tonight the moon will be a bit to the right of where it was last night. You could try this with a single exposure, no light painting. You'd normally want a really wide aperture, but If you stop down to about f9.0 you should be able to get a sunstar effect with the moon. With no light painting, you'd get a silhouette of the building, which might be interesting.

If you want the full moon to be clear and sharp, you'd need to do two exposures...one of 1 second or less for the moon and one for the rest of the scene. You'd probably want to light paint then. I don't do much light painting but for that I'd recommend a 30 second exposure with your widest aperture and your 10 second self timer on. Then after clicking the shutter, run off to a spot left or right and farther back from your camera to light paint. I think this can give a somewhat more natural appearance to it than having the light source come from the same spot as the camera. You need to try to evenly illuminate the scene which can be tough.

Another option would be to try a shot around sunrise Jan 23, when the near-full moon will be in about the same spot it is tonight. You may be able to get the moon over the building right at sunrise (it's possible the moon will be too high then, but I'm guessing you could get something good).

EDIT: You could also try sunrise Jan 22, when the moon will be a bit lower but may also be too far the right.

Thank you SO much Grant! I'd like to have the moon clear and sharp because I love the look of a waning moon. Should I use mirror lock up or will the self timer allow for vibrations to stop in time for the exposure? Should I use auto noise reduction? Do I need to switch to a telephoto lens to get the moon larger and what sort of exposure factors would I use? I'm assuming I would frame that shot to where I want the moon to appear in the final image. I will try your first suggestion too with the star effect and silhouette. Should I expect to get stars in this shot too? Lots of cool possibilties! This has been shot a billion times in the daytime but I've never seen a night shot of it. Thanks again and I will post any decent results.

You could try using your flash to light the wall and you might be able to hold detail in the moon since the moon exposure for detail will be way too short to light paint. If you have two Canon 550EX or more recent flashes, you could use one as a slave in order to light it from an angle different from where the camera is at as Grant suggested when he was referring to light painting.

Have you thought about doing star trails combined with light painting?

I'm not Grant (for which he is profoundly grateful ), but I would use MLU and Auto Noise Reduction (aka Dark Subtraction) for any long exposure. A wide angle lens will indeed make the moon quite small. Use a telephoto if you can still include all of the church. The more you use, the larger the moon.
Have you got a flash? You can use it (off camera) to light paint the exterior. You'll have time to experiment. Try putting a red or orange piece of plastic (like what delivered newspapers come wrapped in) over the flash to impart a warmer light.
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Best of luck! Looks like a great idea to me.

Can't wait to see the end result. That is a great looking ruin and your two comps look like they will work great. Grant's suggestions WILL be used by me also, the next time I try some night shots.
John's suggestions are, of course, equally brilliant. And he is very right about the moon being tiny with a wide angle lens.
I have light painted with my headlamp before and didn't look too bad, so that might be an option as well.
Be sure and post as soon as you develop them.

I use mirror lockup but don't use auto noise reduction. I've tried it with and without noise reduction and really can't tell the difference. I think the noise reduction helps with color noise, which is much more apparent with exposures of 10+ minutes. In my experience, it doesn't noticeably help with exposures under one minute, where luminance noise is the bigger issue. Unfortunately, it takes as long to do the noise reduction as it takes to take the picture, so I've never tried it with 10+ minute exposures. I generally just use film instead. You can get stars with the sunstar effect on the moon...even at F9.0...here's an example: http://www.gcollier.com/Moon-Stars.html. Noise is definitely a bigger factor at this aperture but the moon makes the sky brighter, so there's less noise than with no moon...and you can experiment with larger apertures but will gradually lose the sunstar effect.

Will the fact that this is not going to be a full moon make trying for a star effect moot? Won't there be much less light coming from it? It's only at 17% tonight. Awesome shot Grant and there certainly are stars there

No, my shot was taken with the moon at about 25%...might even work better when the moon is not full...

Any kind of flashlight can work for light painting. I've used everything from my tiny petzl headlamp to a powerful "million candle power" handheld spotlight (the rechargeable kind with a pistol grip). But you do need to pay attention to the color temperature of the light, like John mentions. LEDs are really blue. Good ol' incandescent bulbs are warmer and work best, IMHO. Exposure depends on the power of the light, but it doesn't take long to experiment and find out what is working (unlike the old film days). f/5.6 and 30sec is a good place to start. Another fun thing to experiment with is to move away from the camera and light paint from different directions. This is a great subject. Can't wait to see what you come up with!

Well, the silhouette shots were a bust...guess I should've asked what ISO to use. I used 100 thinking it would be the cleanest, most noise-free choice. All I got was black with a white blob of a moon. Painting went better. We used a maglite with 40,000 candle power which was more than enough light! Experimented with various techniques for "painting". This one was with hubby behind and to the right of the camera painting quickly and including surrounding foliage. He followed my "subtle" directions very well without throwing me off the slope Techs here are: 100 ISO, 30 secs, f4, 40mm (with 17-40 lens), manual focus, WB set to daylight. I didn't mess with the warmth much in processing...would like your thoughts. I am not displeased with this one. Thanks again for your help. Hubby is now hooked on light painting and wants to do more! If anymore can point me to a tutorial on dropping my separate tele moon shot into the church frame, I'd be most appreciative.

Well, I think this is a big success!
Not sure if you needed the foreground bush, though. Seems to interfere with the building and is a bit brighter than the church and surrounds. Lighting on the church looks perfect, and there's no mistaking the moon. Getting hubby interested and involved is icing on the cake.
I think you should post this in a separate thread to get more opinions.

I agree with John,

Try painting just the building if you can and maybe come in from the side, so there are a few more shadows. This will provide more definition to the structure. Remember, front-lighting makes for a "flat" subject.

Then get tricky and paint with red and blue gels (or your choice of colors) across the flashlight - maybe coming from slightly different directions. 10 to 15 seconds per side...

Nice exposure.

I think this turned out really well! The light you used was strong enough that ISO 100 worked fine. I might add a little red/magenta to make the shot warmer. And maybe dodge and burn some...darken the bright upper part of the bushes and maybe lighten the very bottom of the image.

To add the moon, resize the shot of the moon so it's about the same size as it appears in this image. Then use the circle marque to select the moon and a bit of the sky around it. Then drag the moon onto this picture. You might need to make levels adjustments or use the healing brush to make sure the sky around the moon blends in to the sky in this image.

Thanks for your comments guys, it all helps me so much. I feel pretty secure in the techniques now and am anxious to try more night shots soon. As an aside, I was very happy with my new ballheads performance although I find I am still grabbing for a joystick, HA! I only had one QR plate that night so I had to shoot my 300mm f4L lens + 2x TC from the camera attachment rather than from the lens collar. It held it like a rock but I have since gotten a 2nd plate. Why tempt fate?
John M - I shot some straight night sky shots with the 50mm f1.8 using the 10 sec. formula (500 divided by 50) and it worked great.