Learn How to Capture the Phases of the Moon

Hey guys ! Welcome back to my blog. Many of you might have seen this picture that I took on my Facebook as well as Instagram Page. Many of them also texted me personally asking me how I clicked this photo. This Blog post is for all of them who want to learn how to capture such photos.

First of all, let me tell you that this was my first attempt at capturing such a photo and this experiment was successful. I had seen 1 such click almost a ago taken by a professional photographer. This year on 31'st January 2018, a phenomenon called a 'Super Blue Blood Moon' occured after almost 150 years. As a photography enthusiast I couldn't miss such a rare occuring event. The photo above shows the phases of moon during 'Super Blue Blood Moon'.

First let me tell you what 'Super Blue Blood Moon' means because many people didn't know what this event actually was. Many of them even asked me if the moon appears both blue as well as red during this event. You are completely wrong. Let's understand what this event was and why people around the world were so excited about it. So, The Super Blue Blood Moon consisted of 3 events taking place on simultaneously.

1. Super Moon - Supermoon occurs on a full moon/new moon night when the moon is closest to the Earth due to the elliptical orbit of the Earth. Moon appears to be 14 % bigger and brighter than the normal full moon.

2. Blue Moon - is when a full moon occurs twice in a month.

3. Blood Moon - is when the moon appears to be red when in a state of total eclipse during a lunar eclipse due to theshadow of the Earth.

That's why this event is called as the 'Super Blue Blood Moon'.

You can click such photos on normal full moon days too.

So now let's start with the tutorial of 'How to capture such photos?'

Equipment Needed -

D-SLR ( Any D-SLR will do whether crop frame/full frame)

Lens ( Zoom lens )

Tripod

Remote ( If your camera doesn't have a self timer mode)

I had used Nikon D5200 (Crop frame) to shoot this with 55-200 mm lens. Any zoom lens will do. My camera has a self-timer feature so I didn't need a remote. If you don't have this feature then use a remote because a small shake produced due to clicking the shutter button can also make your picture blurred as we are going to slow down the shutter speed for this click.

Choose a place, relatively elevated, from where you can see the cityscape. Make sure the sky is clear and there are no clouds obstructing the view. You need to know from where you would see the moonrise. Place your camera with the lens mounted on a tripod and frame your shot in the direction from where the moonrise would occur.

Click photo of the frame before the moonrise.

When the moon rises , start clicking and keep your focus on the moon using the remote or self-timer. You will have to constantly change your camera settings as the moon changes its colour from red to white during moonrise.

Eg) When the moon was red and in the initial stage of moonrise, I set my camera to shutter-speed : 3 sec ,ISO : 500 and Apperture : f8.

[Keep aperture between f/8 - f/12 because moon is at a long distance from theearth so keeping the aperture wide open i.e keeping f no. lower wont really give good results, still it won't be bad if you try it with different f no.s]

When the moon goes up, it changes it's colour to white and becomes brighter. You will have to change the settings then. It is difficult while the lunar eclipse is in progress because at the intial stage, the moon is red and some part of it turns white so you have to balance both colours so that the white portion is exposed well and the rest of the red coloured moon is also visible.

In the photo above, I have set my camera to Shutter-speed : 3/5th sec Aperture : f/9 , ISO : 500

You will have to click multiple clicks using different exposures from time to time. You will need to have patience and click photos until the moon escapes your camera frame. I sat there for around 3 hours to complete that picture.

After you are done. Now your work is about post processing your image.

First adjust the exposure and colour correction in photoshop. Now follow the following steps.

1) Open all Images in photoshop as layers.

Also make sure that you include the cityscape photo that you have taken without the moon, at the start of the shoot.

2) First, layer with moon in the frame and select the moon in the picture using quick selection tool

In the above photo, the dotted line around the moon shows the quick selection tool applied.

3) Click on the layer masking tab

While the quick selection tool is on ( Dotted line is visible) click on the layer masking button on the right bottom corner

After clicking it, the moon on the layer you are working would be visible on the layer behind it. Do this for all the layers so that all the 'moons' that you added as layers would be visible in one frame.

This gives us the moon phase photo.

The result will be as above. This will also show the track by which the moon moved and the colour change in the moon during the moonrise.

In the above photo, as it was taken during the eclipse we can see movement of the moon, the change in colour as well as the phases of the lunar eclipse.

This is the final result that you will get.

If you want the image that I have shown at the beginning of this post then there is just a little change that you have to do in post processing.

Instead of taking the cityscape as your background, click a photo of the sky at night without the moon and instead of clicking photos of the moon with cityscapes, click only photos of the moon with full zoom.

In post processing follow all the steps mentioned above and then just arrange the layers( layer masked moon) in any way you want, like I arranged it in 'U' shape.

Thats it! You are done now. It's simpler than you think. But ofcourse your photography skills and editing skills matter.

Now that you have learned this, try it on your own on next full moon or supermoon night. You can also email me your experiments on my ID - photographyrb2017@gmail.com and I would be glad to give you reviews on your experiments. Also the best ones will be published on my instagram and Facebook page. Tell me about your expierence about your experiments that you have done through mail or by contacting me through my facebook page. Also let me know whether this blog post was useful for you.

And don't forget to click on the facebook and Instagram icons at the bottom of this page Like both the pages and give your valuable feedback in the 'Reviews' section of the Facebook page.

I'll be back next time with some more exciting and useful stuff. Till then, keep clicking

- Ronak Barhanpurkar ( RBPhotography )

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