Making the best of an unexpected situation can sometimes be the only way to go. While camping at Jordanelle State Park on Friday night, I was expecting to capture some star trail photos. But knowing that it was a full moon, I had to lower some of my expectation. But when the super moon made its way above the mountain range to the east, I had to turn my camera on it and see what I could capture.
Rather than grabbing just another show of the moon, I was trying to get the silhouette of something else into the photo. Since there were a lot of trees in the distance, I decided to make that my additional subject in the photo and ended up with this capture.
Canon 60D | 55-200mm lens | 1/100 | f/10 | ISO 250 | RAW
While this isn’t the shot of the moon that I have in mind as my dream shot, it’s a move in the right direction. The challenge is finding the right setting, and then playing with how I get the ground as well as the moon to show up in the photo. Maybe some HDR action, or some other capture and editing techniques. So for the time being, hope you enjoy this shot and I’ll hope to capture and share my dream photo.
~signed, Carltonaut
Carltonaut 
This is stunning! I have been trying to shoot like this as well everytime the full moon arrives.
My first attempt was in March as I’ve uploaded it here:
http://godslover.wordpress.com/2013/05/24/weekly-photo-challenge-escape/
I set my camera at f/45 (as small as I could get) and played with slow speed at time.
My second one was this month, the supermoon, as I’ve uploaded here:
http://godsloverphotography.wordpress.com/2013/05/25/supereeriemoon/
That one I set my camera at f/11, 1/100s, ISO 100, 300mm.
I am wondering why I got my supermoon blur in the background for the second one and it’s not as good as yours above. Is that about the distance between the camera and the subject in the foreground? Thanks in advance for answering my question. 🙂
Glad you liked the photo. Distance is the only thing I can think of. The tree in my photo was about 100 yards away, which allowed me to have both in focus. Other times I have tried, the trees or other object were so close that I wasn’t able to have both in focus. Not sure if that’s why, but those are my thoughts.
Thank you very much for your answer, Carl. Really appreciated. 🙂
Yes, I have same thought like you. I think the distance takes part in this shot to get both background and foreground in focus.
Thank you very much, Carl. I’ll definitely try it again next month! 🙂