Moon at sunset

[TheMonkey]

Sunsets I'm comfortable photographing.

The moon at night I'm comfortable photographing.

However, when there is still enough light out at sunset when the sky starts to glow and can still get good focus on landscape, I have a hard time getting the moon in focus.

It might be a pretty good opportunity in a couple hours. Moon rises at 4:41 and sun sets at 4:40. Super moon that is closest to Earth in like a 80 year window. I'd like to set up to see if a gift shows up.

But, I feel unqualified for this setup because I struggle with getting clarity on the moon.

Canon 80d
EF 300mm L F/4 IS USM
50mm f/1.8 STM
or a couple kit zooms

Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[KmH]

When the moon is low in the sky the amount of atmosphere you are shooting through is many times thicker than when the moon is high in the sky.
All of that atmosphere is in motion all the time and right after sunset the land, roads, and buildings start releasing heat they stored during the day back to the atmosphere adding additional currents to the movement of the air.

All that moving air near the horizon hinders a sharp focus on the moon for even highly experienced photographers.

 

[TheMonkey]

Thanks Keith.

I ended up with too much lens to bring in landscape too, but I think the thing to try is blending 2 pics in Photoshop. I read a couple articles about this, but I don't know Photoshop yet. One exposed for landscape and one exposed for moon surface. Sort of cheating in my mind but that's the pic I wanted. I wasn't framed up properly for it though.

I ended up playing with focus transition through tree limbs using video. You can see the moon moving very slowly through the frame.

 

[photo1x1.com]

Thanks Keith.

I ended up with too much lens to bring in landscape too, but I think the thing to try is blending 2 pics in Photoshop. I read a couple articles about this, but I don't know Photoshop yet. One exposed for landscape and one exposed for moon surface. Sort of cheating in my mind but that's the pic I wanted. I wasn't framed up properly for it though.

I ended up playing with focus transition through tree limbs using video. You can see the moon moving very slowly through the frame.

View attachment 130338 View attachment 130339

Cool, I like the video - especially the beginning, but the focus transition could have been a tad quicker for my taste.
In regard to the moon at "moonrise". One problem is: the moon is much brighter once it is high up. Depending on where you live and how clean the air is in lower regions, the difference can be 7 stops or more. That will lead to a much longer shutter speed. Since the moon is actually "moving" pretty fast, that will result in motion blur (the more, the longer your lens).
An option in regard to focus would be to move further back from (in your case) the bridge, to have both the moon and the bridge in focus at the same time. if the bridge will focus at infinity, so will the moon. So the further you are away from the object you are going to shoot, the more likely it is that both foreground and moon will be sharp. PLUS: the moon will appear bigger, because the object will become smaller.

A tip on moon photography: do you know the app photopills? It tells you via VR exactly when the moon will rise at what position. You can even plan way in advance when the moon - milky way, etc. will be where. And also whether it will be supermoon, or "standard" moon. Plus, there are many other things. A must have in my opinion.

Here would be my try to get your two images together in photoshop. The problem is always the border - that´s why it has that glow:

But once you start cheating, you could as well use an image from the moon when it is higher up, well lit and sharper.

or you cheat all the way, replace the sky and blend the moon in (quick and dirty though, so the edges are rough). BUT THAT IS NOT PHOTOGRAPHY . It just shows how others do what you sometimes can´t really do in camera. Don´t let others fool you!

 

[TheMonkey]

Oh yes! Super rad. Thanks for sharing. Now I'm inspired to learn photoshop. That is super cool.

Great idea to back up further to infinity focus and manipulating relative scale (with the camera lol).

Thanks again - big smile here