“It’s caught me in it’s spotlight. It’s alright it’s alright the moonlight”. A Thin Lizzy hit although I tend to better remember the great Smashing Pumpkins cover. Be thankful that my new version – Shooting in the Moonlight – only exists by my pen (well keyboard) not my voice!
Shooting images in the Moonlight lit only by a full moon is something I wanted to do for a while. You have to get away from most light pollution (cities etc) and find yourself somewhere nice and dark so you can capture a glorious night sky featuring magical stars and a nice moonlit landscape. In April I found myself camping in the Namibian Veld (Afrikaans for bush) on a night with a full moon and wanted to experiment with Shooting in the Moonlight. This is basically what I ended up with after a few tests:
Namibia Moonlit Veld
© Flemming Bo Jensen Photography
This is in pitch darkness lit entirely by the moon. The image itself is fairly boring but it serves as an example of how a full moon can easily light up a landscape and create a great otherworldly light along with a massive amount of beautiful stars! This image was a 25 second exposure at f/4.0 iso 1250, a full moon is bright but not exactly the burning midday sun. You do need very long exposures and high iso to capture this. A 25 second exposure is too much actually, the earth has already rotated enough to create small star trails, so a faster lens would come in very handy here.
Now that I look at the image I really should have walked up the hill and put some nice rocks close up in the foreground! My mind was frozen as it gets so cold in the veld after sunset. Ah, always great things to learn and improve on. Come next opportunity I hope to have a winning moonlit shot to show you or at least an improved one! Anyone wishing to share some moonlit shooting experiences, please do comment. Take me out to the black!
Moonlit video: For some out of this world time lapse images featuring magical stars and light, this brilliant video by Tom @ Timescapes is pure genius.
14 responses so far ↓
chloe // Wednesday 30 September at 12:48 pm |
are those stars real(?)
wow this makes me miss mallacoota ;hopefully we’ll go this christmas & i can take some lovely sky photos that are un-interrupted
p.s hugely awesome photo
Flemming Bo Jensen // Wednesday 30 September at 16:37 pm
Thanks Chloe and yes, those stars are very real and on the original size 5D Mk II file there are a lot more of them!
matthewinman // Wednesday 30 September at 14:34 pm |
Nice image of the veld and accompanying stars. looks very much like outback yet african. I’d love to go back to South Africa for some photography. I hope that continent is treating you well:)
Flemming Bo Jensen // Wednesday 30 September at 16:48 pm
Not in Africa at the moment Matthew but will definitely be returning next year!
thomasparkes // Thursday 1 October at 2:35 am |
Great work Flemming, you have just remind me again how much I underutilise the 5d mkII.
Night shooting and video, I haven’t really done either as yet.
Tony Middleton // Thursday 1 October at 9:27 am |
Nice work Flemming, At first I thought it was from the Kimberley until I read far enough into the post to know otherwise. Those dry desert atmospheres are a gem for the night sky aren’t they !
cheers,
Flemming Bo Jensen // Thursday 1 October at 11:57 am
Yes Tony they are incredible for sky photography and I must do more! Not much beats lying in a sleeping bag in the bush or veld just staring straight into infinity, straight into the universe and back into time, travelling into space with a million stars visible…
Charlene // Friday 2 October at 12:08 pm |
“Veld” is a great word.
“The image itself is fairly boring… ”
Not with that many stars out it isn’t. Love your work as always
Flemming Bo Jensen // Friday 2 October at 15:59 pm
Thanks and yeah Veld (pronounced Feld) is a great word and I agree the stars are magic. The composition is not though, much to improve to live up to my own standard.
truenorthmark // Saturday 3 October at 14:27 pm |
Nice work Bo,
I like all the new posts. You certainly get around mate!
Cheers,
Mark
Matt Lauder // Sunday 4 October at 22:24 pm |
Its amazing how many starts are out there when you get rid of the light pollution. I guess this is the time when you wished you had sprung for the f2.8 lens version. Still worked a treat. At 1250 iso the 5d MkII works a treat and as you said avoiding long exposures is what you want not only for star movement but also sensor fatigue giving you long exposure noise and artifacts.
I agree with Toms comment as I have under used my MkII and need to get out and start playing at night. But I dont expect to get star numbers like this here on the Central Coast.
Flemming Bo Jensen // Monday 5 October at 9:10 am
Hi Matt, yeah here the 2.8 would have been handy! Good thing the 5D Mk II is a champ with high iso.
This was shot basically in pitch black conditions, a little bit away from our camp. I ruined my own night vision by using a torch but it was the only way to see anything at all! Total darkness and a billion stars visible. I really want to play more with this as well, perhaps get some time lapse.
truenorthmark // Monday 5 October at 14:08 pm |
Hey Bo,
I have just posted one just for you!
Cheers,
Mark
katieleigh // Tuesday 6 October at 12:59 pm |
this makes me jealous that the iso doesn’t go up high enough on my 1000d
i miss skies like this, i don’t see any stars here in the city