Hi, this us Jay P. Morgan.
Today on The Slanted Lens, we're down here at MacArthur Park, in Los Angeles.
We're looking into what would be on the west side of downtown L.A.
The reason we're here is I wanna get a shot of the moon as it comes up over the buildings
of Los Angeles.
This kinda became a quest or a journey when we were in Bryce.
The moon was just rising as the sun was just setting, so we got some warmth and some color
on the mountains, and the moon was coming up.
It was just a happy accident, and I thought, "This is amazing, we just have to be at the
right place at the right time."
I'm thinking to myself, "Well, how can I be calculated about it to find the time where
I can shoot the moon to have it be where I want it to be?"
So I started doing some research on how to be able to identify, or to know, when the
moon's going to rise, and when it's gonna set.
The funny thing about the moon, is it almost looks better the day before it's full, because
it's just like any light source, when the light shines straight at the moon, and it's
a full moon, there are no craters.
But as the light moves around it, the sun moves around the moon, it starts to reveal
the craters as it crosses across it.
So the day before or the day after are gonna give you a much nicer look and craters on
the moon.
Welcome to Los Angeles.
"Brah, brah, brah.
Look at me, look at me, look at me."
So number one, you've gotta be able to find the moon.
Use some kind of app to track the moon.
Moon Seeker has worked for me, I don't love it, it's not perfect, but I haven't found
something better.
I know pretty close about where it's going to be.
I know roughly what time it's going to come up.
I get to look at the skyline here and I can tell that even though it says it comes up
at about 6:30 or 6:40, it's not gonna get to above those buildings until about 7:10.
Well, the sun is so much more predictable than the moon, because the sun changes by
about a minute to two minutes a day from when it rises, but the moon changes by 20 or 30
minutes.
It's much more erratic.
So you've gotta have some kind of an app to track the moon to be able to figure out where
it's going to be.
If we move over there by 100 yards, where the moon's going to be on that horizon is
gonna change a lot.
So get in the spot where you're gonna shoot, see if you like where the moon is and keep
walking around until you see where it is.
Moon Seeker at least gives you a good idea of where it's at.
So that's the first thing, you gotta have something to track the moon.
Number two is, I'm going to use that same program, that Moon Seeker to show me the path
that the moon in going to rise on, and to tell me what time it's going to be in place
to be able to do my photograph.
Because, if we get here too late and the moon is way up in the sky, that doesn't do me any
good.
I'm not photographing the moon alone, I want the moon to be right on the skyline.
So Moon Seeker's gonna tell me right exactly when it's gonna be on top of the skyline.
Because knowing what time it rises is different than knowing where it's gonna be in the right
position in your image.
And then that, which is the third thing, tells me what time I wanna shoot.
I wanna be here at 6:30, be able to set up.
I wanna shoot from 6:30 into 7:10 into probably 7:30 to see that moon rise above the buildings
to get my shot.
So I learned three things: where's the moon, what time is it going to come up, and exactly
where is it going to be in my image, because it gives me a path that it's going to follow
and tells me what time it's going to come up above those buildings.
So I need to know all three of those things.
Now, let's talk about exposure.
You know, it's interesting because if you look at the moon when it's pretty much full
moon, it's like looking at daylight on the moon.
You're getting a direct look at the sun there.
It's pretty darn bright.
It is not that far off from a daylight setting, so it is not hard to get an exposure of the
moon.
But, when it's down on the horizon, it's gotta shine through all the atmosphere, and it becomes
much darker.
So just know, if you're taking a picture just straight of the moon, it's daytime on the
moon.
So I'm gonna set up two cameras so I have two lens options while I'm shooting here.
I'll do a 24-70 on this camera.
That's gonna give me a lot more of the lake, and if I put that at about 50 millimeters,
that's roughly what the eye sees as far as the size of the moon, so as I'm looking at
it here, that's exactly the way the eye is gonna see it.
On the other camera I'm gonna put a 70-200 millimeter lens, because I wanna get in much
tighter and just get a little section of the buildings with the big moon.
I'll experiment with that really quickly, shoot it getting in tight, a little more broad,
but I've got 70-200 millimeters.
If I've got time, I'll try throwing on the 150-600 millimeter, get much tighter shots
of the moon just depending on how it plays out.
There's not much time, the moon is moving way faster than you would think.
It will get up an out of the frame in almost 15, 20 minutes, it's not gonna last near as
long as you might think.
So we've gotta shoot really fast, that's why I'm setting up two cameras.
It's Los Angeles, the city with a thousands smells.
Although lately, about 999 of those have been weed.
Use a tripod.
It's crazy not to use a tripod, especially on these longer lenses.
I've got two tripods up here, it's the 263 tripods by Vanguard.
These are really a go to tripod for me.
Use a tripod.
It's really important when you go to take your exposure that you use some kind of a
triggering device.
Now you can put it on a 2 second or a 10 second delay, that does allow your tripod to settle,
and it's gonna make sure your exposure is gonna be much more sharp, but the easiest
thing to do is use some kind of a trigger.
I've been using a MIOPS trigger, it's a time lapse device, it's a remote trigger, it does
all those things, it's just really simple.
I'm just gonna plug that into my camera.
I'll use that on my longer lens here, because that's the one that's gonna bounce around
a little bit, especially if I go to that 150-600 millimeter lens.
I'm gonna click on the MIOPS mobile remote, click on my device number, and now I'm all
set up, all I have to do is hit cable release, and I take a picture.
Take a picture.
Every time I hit the button, take a picture.
Taking a picture, we're taking a picture, it's another picture, we're gonna take another
picture.
If you're super concerned about camera shake, you can lock the mirror up on a DSLR and that'll
make sure the camera doesn't shake.
When you're using like a 600 millimeter lens, with a 2x converter on it, sometimes that's
a really smart thing to do to trigger with the mirror up.
Quack, quack.
Quack quack quack quack, quack quack.
One thing I cannot predict is clouds.
And all of a sudden, we got pretty heavy cloud cover here.
I mean, we looked at the app, it said maybe partly cloudy, don't let that discourage you
if you get in this situation, because that moon may cut through the clouds enough to
make it look really interesting.
It could be spectacular, you just never know what's gonna happen.
The one thing though, I didn't mention about, is color balance.
I put my camera on auto white balance, because it's gonna be changing, as that sun goes down,
as the moon comes up, it's just gonna change.
So I'm gonna run this at auto white balance, and that'll give me a range.
I'll probably shoot it at aperture preferred, so I'm gonna go down to F4, rather than 2.8
wide open, I'll go down F4, and I'll keep watching that shutter.
If that shutter is getting too long, a lot of times, in this situation I will put my
exposure compensation at minus two-thirds.
If I put my focus point on the moon it may make my exposure a little too dark, so I may
have to open it up a little bit, so minus two-thirds might not be right, I may have
to go to just straight normal, or a plus two-thirds to be able to get the scene to look correctly.
So I'll be looking at that every image, and making those changes as I shoot.
I'll just shoot through it and just keep changing the settings.
As I'm looking at this, and I'm focusing and playing with my focus, I'm realizing that
I may go to 5.6 or even F8 if I can get a shutter speed that'll work.
I'll probably set my focus point on the moon, and do shots of the moon, then I'll probably
set the focus on the buildings, and I'll shoot some...the buildings in focus.
That'll probably the way I'll get the best looking image tonight.
Boy, the moon was a little shy as it came up tonight, came up right in the middle of
those clouds.
So we can predict a lot of things and knew exactly where it was going to come up, knew
exactly what time it was going to come up, but can't predict what clouds are gonna do,
and so the clouds kinda laid right on it.
At first it was a little uninteresting, but as it got up a little bit, it looked pretty
spectacular.
Julie stayed here and kept shooting on this camera.
I ran around the side of the lake over there, and I started shooting from there, and I got
some pretty nice images of the moon with that Westlake sign in the foreground.
I'm gonna have to composite those two together, there's no doubt about it.
But I learned a lot of things, I mean, tomorrow night, I'm thinking that's the full moon tomorrow
night.
But the moon doesn't come up until 8:00 pm.
So it'll be coming up and the city will be this dark.
We won't have the brightness in the city that we got tonight tomorrow night.
So it's unfortunate.
We had one shot, tonight was it.
But, there's always next month.
You'll have to look at a lunar calendar and find out when the moon rising and the sun
setting happen at the same time.
But we got some great shots of the moon.
Not as spectacular as we'd hoped for, but we got some fabulous shots nonetheless, so
here's some of the images we got.
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So there you have it, how to shoot the moon.
So keep those cameras rolling, keep on clicking.
What would it cost to shoot a photograph on this seamless setup here?
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