Super Moon

Last night the moon was SUPER:) 

Well, that's what everyone called it...it was just because it was incredibly bright and the closest it's been to the earth in 2387473.000789acb783 years....or something like that..

Anyhoo...I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to take some pictures...

Here's where knowing how to work your camera in Manual is a great help...

Let me see if I can walk you through what I did...

First of all, I thought, "Hmmm, it's really dark out here, so I probably ought to lower my aperture down to the lowest setting and slow down my shutterspeed really slow too..."  I also fiddled with my ISO to let in the most light...Using all those settings to my "advantage" I wanted to try to soak up as much light as I could (remember, I'm thinking that it's pretty dark and a flash is definitely not going to reach the moon!)

This is what happened...

Do you see it?  I was right in thinking, "umm, it's dark outside, so I need as much light as I can get..."  the problem is that I was pointing my light sensor right at the bright moon...which is sorta like pointing it at a flashlight...it just blinds you...So, I lost ALL the detail of the moon...

I got some cool clouds and that reflection off to the right...but it basically looks like a giant glowing circle in the sky...

Soooooo...I dialed up my aperture back up, I sped up my shutterspeed and tried to meter right on the moon...I didn't want as much light this time...I wanted to get a quick shot so that I could freeze those details as the light was traveling...well, the speed of light :)

Here's what I got this time:

This time, I got the shadows on the moon, but gone were the clouds...gone were the hazy dark blue/black skies...everything in the background went to pitch black...because, by upping my shutterspeed and aperture, I wasn't allowing that powerful light into my camera sensor for a long time...therefore, I got to "freeze" the detail on the subject, but I lost the other details that were surrounding...

What's a girl to do who wants the best of both worlds?

Well...I just used my Click It skills in photoshop and combined the two pictures:)

to those that have come to a Snapshop Class, I hope this sheds a little bit of "light" on this situation (no pun intended:)  Have fun experimenting:)