Amanda Smith Blue Moon Photography Update on August 20, 2013 Blue Moon in Wyoming

Good morning from Amanda Smith Photography, Wyoming!

I thought I would update my Blue Moon post dated August 21, 2013 regarding my photography of Wyoming's Blue Moon on August 20, 2013.

I still have some more "studying" to do on capturing a blue moon in August.. in Wyoming.  As you can see, its not as sharp as I'd love it to be, and although I did add a bit of drama to the photo by tweeking the curve a bit to show that there is in fact a sort of tinge of blue to a blue moon, I still do like the photo.  The moon was actually a greyish blue in the original photo, more grey than blue.

The brightness of the moon, because blue moon's are so incredibly bright, made it hard for this photographer to grasp the idea of what setting would work best.  I opted to forgo trying to capture the clouds that surrounded this particular moon, and just go for the moon.

The reason I did this, was because shooting on bulb to try to capture the glow of the clouds around the moon, made it difficult to capture the detail in the moon. Even though I have been photographing professionally for over 20 years, I have never attempted to photograph a blue moon.  And I am happy to say that with all the years of experience under my belt, I still have more to learn, and am looking forward to more "studying" and more photographing of the moon and the skies and the stars that overlook the great Cowboy State that is Wyoming.

See my "Amanda Smith Wyoming Photographer" previous post on more information on my experience with capturing this Wyoming blue moon. You can click here to go to that previous post:

http://amandasmithwyomingphotographer.blogspot.com/2013/08/photographing-wyomings-blue-moon-last.html

Have a beautiful and very Blessed day!

Amanda Smith
Professional Photographer, Wyoming
Amanda Smith Photography

Amanda Smith Photography, Wyoming. ©2013
August 20, 2013 Blue Moon

Photographing Wyoming's Blue Moon on August 20, 2013 by Amanda Smith Photography, Wyoming.

Photographing Wyoming's Blue Moon, last night, August 20, 2013.

By Photographer Amanda Smith, Editor of The Glenrock Bird newspaper, Owner of Amanda Smith Photography (formerly Shooting Stars Photography.)

I have to say that photographing this "Blue Moon" was a little more difficult than I thought it would be, last night.

This was not your ordinary bulb setting or long exposure situation. Those ways simply won't work with the moon.

I started out by setting my Nikon D700 on my tripod, and attached an f2.8 200 zoom.   I then set my camera up on a tripod at around 10pm when the blue moon was extremely bright, realizing quickly that it was too bright to photograph on a bulb setting, a well known way to shoot night skies.

I initially set my camera at f8 with the lowest ISO setting my Nikon camera would allow and set the timing of my light at 1/80 of a second.  This actually allowed too much light in because of the brightness of the blue moon, although the exposure was for correct exposure for the clouds, this exceptionally bright moon was completely blown out. In other words, the clouds and sky looked amazing, but the moon was completely blown out, there was no sharpness to the moon, at all.

I changed my settings to f22 for a sharper image, hoping to capture the unique markings of the moon, and set my timing of light to 1/160 of a second, and the moon looked great and the clouds, though a bit darker, were certainly still illuminated well enough (by the blue moon) for an excellent and very clear shot.

Amanda Smith Photography Wyoming. Blue Moon on August 20, 2013

Photographing the moon can be difficult, and sometimes people forget that exposure is perfection. If you want to see the "man in the moon" you've got to get your exposure dead on, and never settle for a moon so bright, that you can't see the green cheese.  ;)

 Have an awesome and very blessed day, folks! We'll see you tomorrow!

God Bless!

Amanda Smith
Professional Photographer and Western Photographic Artist, Wyoming
www.amandasmithphotography.com
Shooting for Christ, Focusing on God (©)

P.s.

While we are talking about night shots, check out this little morsel I created lat week using a bulb setting.  More on this shot below, tomorrow!

Thunder Boomer and Stars over that big Wyoming Sky!
©Amanda Smith, Professional Photographer, Wyoming.