- Bonjour mesdames and messieurs.
In this episode I want to give you seven tips
to get great moon photography.
(dramatic vocalizing)
All right, so tip number one.
Of course, you've got to use a tripod.
A very, very good tripod because you want to really
get a sharp photo.
Stay until the end because all these tips are vital.
Tip number two.
Plan your shooting.
I use two things,
in my office I use the Photographer's Ephemeris
which is completely free, which is amazing.
The way it works is basically here you can put a pin
anywhere so let me go for example to Paris, okay?
And you can put the date that you want,
and you can see here that very gray line
is going to be where the moon is gonna rise.
And you can see here that it says that the moonrise
is going to be at 9:25 p.m., 21:25 in European style.
So the sunset's gonna be at 9:15, so that means
the moon is going to rise during the night,
and this is the hardest kind of photographing,
but sometimes the moon rises during the day,
so I'm going to show you both cases
and how you retouch both cases.
So once you know this, let's say I want to get
the moon behind Notre Dame, I can see that
if I can stand here for example Notre Dame
is going to be, let me zoom in a little bit,
let's move this around, so Notre Dame is right here.
I can see the moon is going to be rising.
So if I put the pin here for example,
Notre Dame being here, I know the moon is gonna rise
right behind Notre Dame so anywhere here,
if I can get on the top of these buildings,
I might get Notre Dame and the moon behind.
That's kind of cool.
So, anywhere along that line I'm gonna see Notre Dame
and the moon.
Once you know where you're gonna stand to get the moon
behind something very iconic,
then it's time to go and shoot the moon.
So tip number three use PhotoPills
and the AR augmented reality teacher
so you can see really in real time exactly
where the moon is going to be.
It's not always super, super precise,
but it's gonna really help you to make sure you've got
something very important, something that's iconic
and the moon behind it, okay?
So I'm going to show you an example with downtown
Los Angeles and I'm gonna show you an example
with the Griffith Park.
I kinda mess up the Griffith Park one,
I love the moons shot that I got,
but I couldn't, I had to go to another mountain
if I wanted to get the moon aligned with the Griffith Park.
But that's totally okay.
And by the way guys.
If you're gonna smash that like button,
it makes a huge difference for me.
Other people can discover this video,
so if you can take a moment and like this video,
I would so much appreciate it.
Also, I've got an amazing masterclass,
I think it's below this video where I tell you
how at the age of 40 I stopped being a salesman
to become a full-time product photographer,
I almost lost my house in the process,
I ended up selling half a million dollar's worth
of fine art prints through galleries and through books
and I'm gonna show you three things
that made all the difference for me.
The link is below this video.
Tip number four.
Shoot at 200 millimeter or above.
A lot of people doing moon photographing shoot at like 800,
600, the problem, it gets harder and harder and harder.
I find that 200 to 300 is a good spot,
because you can really get something of the environment
and the moon.
So I have a 75 to 300 from Sony which I love,
and I've been shooting the moon with it,
but you have to get some kind of long lens in some way.
Manual focus and make sure that the moon is really sharp.
It's really very important.
So I usually go to manual focus and I can punch
in my focus with my Sony
and make sure I'm really, really sharp.
It's so hard, especially at night.
During the day it's kind of easier, much easier.
But during the night, actually the next day I totally
messed up and I tried to get the moon over Santa Monica Pier
and they were all blurry.
So, the trick is, you take a photo, you make sure
it's fully, fully sharp.
If not, you redo, use manual focus until you know
you've got a sharp photo.
And then you don't touch anything.
Best use a remote because you know you are not sharp.
The moon is not gonna go away,
you have to make sure you don't move.
So when you have to shoot at night,
I highly recommend to shoot HDR.
And I'm gonna show you how, what you do with
the HDR later on.
Minus two and plus two because the moon is so bright
compared to the rest.
You won't be able to get everything really nice in one shot.
But when it comes for daylight photography,
like I did with the Griffins Park, one exposure is fine.
Last tip is when you should at night make sure
that the moon is as small as possible when you go into
menu manual focus.
Smaller is going to be the more,
more sharp it's going to be.
It's really hard to get sharp photo at night
of the moon, believe me it's really hard
especially at 300 millimeter,
but you have to do it.
If you can nail it it's really good.
I'm gonna show you two shoots.
Two super moons one from 2016 and one from 2020.
So first the easiest one is gonna be the one
from 2020 because the super moon for 2016
is really hard to retouching.
We gotta mix exposure in Photoshop,
that's coming at the end.
Right now we're gonna do everything in Lightroom,
it's gonna be much easier.
So you can see here this is the moon I was trying
to get the observatory's here on the right,
but actually I messed it up I should have gone one
more mountain further.
The way there was like different hills and I was,
I had to go one more hill it was too late
because the moon goes up really fast,
like in 10 minutes so I didn't have the time to re-set up
on the next mountain.
But anyway I'm still happy with what I got.
And I know it did really well on Instagram.
So I shot it at 300 millimeter with my 70 to 300 at 200
per second at 6.3, ISO 100.
And you will see with one exposure,
I'm happy we got everything.
So I'm going to go and I'm gonna open the shadows.
I'm gonna not bring down the highlights all the way
or maybe in this case maybe all the way
and then I'm gonna do my black point.
Holding the Option key to make sure I got about,
you see what you see here, in yellow and red
is a 100% black, that's good.
I'm gonna take this off
and then I'm gonna get my white point.
Same thing when I move hold on the Option key
and I moved to the right until I see something.
Look at this, look at this.
So actually I'm just I'm gonna be not holding
the white button something like this.
Yeah, like that, that's good.
I'm gonna add there's no cloud
so I'm gonna add some texture and I'm gonna add some,
well not clarity,
see clarity is gonna make halos everywhere.
So no clarity, no clarity for me.
Actually you know what I'm not even gonna add texture
and clarity because I don't want any halos here
on the bushes.
Now the white balance is totally off.
I think I'm gonna go a little more blue
and a lot more magenta.
Yeah that's more like it.
Add a bit of contrast.
Add a bit of vibrance.
Maybe a little bit brighter.
Okay so I'm gonna crop it Instagram style.
So I'm gonna take the crop tool,
I'm gonna go four by five.
Xed to go into portrait mode.
And sorry, yeah portrait mode.
Portrait mode's good and I'm gonna put the moon like right
under this golden points here.
Because I want to give still some space.
And voila maybe make it a bit more contrasty.
And voila.
And so what I did is I was kind of upset
because I wanted to get the observatory behind
and I you know I missed my mountain.
It was so hard I really had to climb more
so I did two other shots a little wider just to show
and that's the observatory.
I was trying to get the moon there.
I could have done it if I had followed PhotoPills.
I did not follow PhotoPills,
it was showing me that the moon was gonna go
on the left side and I didn't trust it,
I should have.
And this is the last one that I got and the moon higher
goes the moon smaller it gets.
So on this one what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna
synchronize the retouching that I did,
but I'm not going to synchronize the crop
and everything else I'm gonna synchronize.
Voila.
And boom, so you can see the full moon here
and this one it's much smaller
because now I'm at 161 millimeter,
and this one I'm at 128 millimeter.
Okay, now crazy, crazy, crazy moon.
The one, the super moon in 2016.
So what I did is, remember there's so much time crunch
you've got no choice into HDR.
So this is my normal exposure.
This is my under exposure and you can see here,
let me show you the moon.
So that's the normal exposure,
it's completely blown away even if I bring down
the highlights we have some details but it's burned.
However if I bring dwon the highlights
on the underexposed photo, look at this.
I get all the details that I want it's amazing.
And then I didn't even use the overexposed photo.
I only use a normal exposure and the under exposure, okay?
And then what I did is, is just for the fun
I'm gonna show you different photos of the underexposed
photo of the moon going up like this,
actually not this one I'm gonna use just this one
and this one, okay?
Yes, so this is under photos and then I'm gonna blend all
this into Photoshop to get something like this.
Very similar.
So the way I'm gonna do this, first I'm going to retouch
the normal exposure so I'm going to open shadows.
I'm gonna boost the whites.
And I'm not caring so much about the moon,
I bring down the highlights but not so much.
I'm gonna do my black point, the white points yes,
maybe bring down a bit of the highlights.
I mean look the moon is totally gone,
there's almost no more details there.
I'm gonna boost the exposure overall.
I think I want to make the photo a little more blue
and a little more magenta.
Okay, I think I'm gonna make a big circle here
over the city which I'm gonna invert.
Double-click on affects so nothing, I just want to add a
bit of exposure there.
Maybe a bit of magenta or yellow, yeah,
because it was some kind of glow around the moon
that I'm kind of missing here.
Okay I like that.
Maybe add a bit of exposure.
On this one I am gonna add a bit of clarity
and sharpening because I can.
But you see the moon is fully blown away.
And I want to get closer to the moon so I don't need
all this space.
So I'm gonna go here, I'm gonna go
and I'm just gonna crop this photo in a way,
like I still want to get a bit of this, maybe a bit of this,
something like this.
Like I really want, like maybe on this golden here,
maybe just right there.
I like to play around with the rule of third
and not put it exactly on the rule of third,
but like a little bit like this.
I think it just makes it a bit more dynamic.
So wow.
Now it's there but the moon is fully, you know,
there's no more details.
So now what I'm going to do is I'm just gonna
click the next, this photo so the the underexposed photo
and the two other underexposed photo that I shot
I'm gonna synchronize
everything that including the crop this time.
Including the crop and boom.
Check this out so now we have
look at the moon, it's perfect.
You can even see like a chopper going by
and then the moon here is a little higher
it's perfect and here it's perfect again.
I'm actually not even gonna use this one
I'm only gonna use the three photos so I'm gonna take
this photo this photo and this photo
and I'm gonna play around in Photoshop,
so one, two, three right click.
Edit, Open As Layers in Photoshop.
Alright so here I am in Photoshop all the layers
are open and I'm just gonna take,
if you want to know what layer does or has
you just hold on the option key
and you click here and that's gonna turn
off the visibility of all the layers but this one.
So I can see this one is the moon,
and then this one is the moon underexposed
and this one is a little more exposed
but a little higher up.
Okay perfect.
So I'm gonna take the moon that's underexposed
which is in the middle, here put it on top.
Okay then I'm gonna zoom in with Z for zoom like Zorro,
but it's zoom then I'm take the quick selection tool or W
and then I'm gonna make this smaller,
so any tool in Photoshop mesdames and messieurs,
mesdames and messieurs, any tool in Photoshop you hold down
Control and Option, you click and drag and you can make your
brush smaller or bigger.
So I'm gonna make it bit smaller and I'm just gonna
select this and boom.
It is so, it's such a dynamic range
that it's perfectly selected.
And all I have to do now is click here
and boom it's gonna create a mask and voila.
Now I got the moon with all the details on top.
I'm happy I need to clean up and I will do so in a minute
but now I'm gonna take this other moon which is much higher.
I'm going to same things.
So W for the quick select tool.
Select the moon, click here, here, here,
for the mask and boom.
Command T and I can move this moon a little higher.
I can move this moon here for example.
okay I love that and I can,
I can go here on the original layer and hold on the Option
key to make sure you're on the move tool,
you hold on the option key and I click and drag
and it makes a new moon.
I can put, it was going up a bit like this and then again
like this for example.
And boom and you can show you know how the moon was
doing all the way.
It's really cool.
First I want to make the moon a little darker
so remember that moon is on that layer here.
Okay, this other layer is just for the other moons.
I can go just on that layer, click here, curve okay?
And then click here so the curve only affects
the layer that's under and the layer that's under
is just that moon.
And I can just make this one a little bit darker,
so it matches the other ones a little more.
Maybe bring down a little bit the highlights maybe
not so much.
Something like this.
And you see it's making it more saturated.
So one trick is that curve adjustment
you can put it into luminosity mode.
What that's gonna do is that it's gonna make it darker
without changing the saturation.
So it's pretty good, pretty good.
I could spend more time making it exact color,
but you get the idea.
In any case the moon as when I've totally changed colors
so it's actually more, it's just fun to show
how the moon progresses.
So now I'm good, I just want to clean that up.
I'm gonna create a layer that takes into account all we've
done so far.
So Command + Alt + Shift + E and on this one
I'm just gonna go in there
take the, I'm just gonna in there and take
the Spot Healing Brush tool
and I'm just gonna brush away that chopper.
J is the shortcut make this smaller.
Just gonna clean this up here, voila.
There's a bit of a mess here.
Voila, voila.
We do get some chromatic aberration around the moon
but that's totally normal and voila.
I hope you enjoyed this.
Please give me a little like if you did.
Share this video if you can.
Leave me a comment and tell me what you would like to learn
and of course if you did not subscribe to my channel
mesdames and messieurs,
subscribe and get some awesome videos every week.
It's amazing.
Don't forget to watch my master class,
link is below this video and I will see
you in another video.
Au revoir.