Air 2s Exactly how do you shoot the Moon ?

[Phantomrain.org]

If there is a Trick to shooting the Moon than I dont know what it is.. That moon is very elusive , and does not want to be photographed by the drone.

I find it near impossible to capture any detail in the Moon .



Flying at Night Protect those above you.





Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly your air 2s in the Rain and Capture the storm.

 

[Meta4]

If there is a Trick to shooting the Moon than I dont know what it is.. That moon is very elusive , and does not want to be photographed by the drone.

I find it near impossible to capture any detail in the Moon .

The wideangle lens of the drone camera makes it about the worst possible tool to photograph the moon.
If you want to photograph the moon and show any detail, you need a real camera with a telephoto lens.
With a wideangle lens on any camera, the moon will be an overexposed blur.

 

[Saladshooter]

These guys on YouTube filmed the full moon with an Inspire and a X7 camera.... their results were less than stellar.

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[Prop Wash]

@Phantomrain.org - That's a good question. I've never tried. I fly a Mini2 so I'm not sure of it would, but won't know till I try.

@Meta4 - Never thought that. I'm sure the distance has something to do with it too.

 

[Meta4]

@Meta4 - Never thought that. I'm sure the distance has something to do with it too.

There are two things that make teh drone so bad for photographing the moon.
The moon is far away and the wideangle lens makes everything look further away, so with the drone, the moon is only a tiny dot in the sky.
Exposure is another big factor because people usually shoot the moon at night.
With a whole frame of dark foreground and a tiny spot of bright moon, if you have exposed for the foreground or the sky, the moon is hopelessly overexposed and no detail is visible.
If the photo was shot in daylight or dusk, the exposure problem is eliminated, but you see how small the moon really looks in the image.

Here's an example of an almost full moon shot at sunset.
No exposure problem, but without the overexposure glare around the moon, you see how small it really looks.

And shot at night, to have good exposure for the foreground, the moon is completely overexposed

 

[Phantomrain.org]

That explains a lot , so the best I can hope for is to just capture the Lightning Strike with the Moon as nothing more than an Icon in the background to provide some sense of the Aura of the night. Got it

 

[Lens]

The only way to get a little detail of the moon is during a moonrise or moonset. Near the horizon the moon will be orange to reddish. This will bring some detail of the moon. As stated by Meta4, the wide angle shot will make it look further away. Plus zooming in only helps slightly.

 

[GrayHornet]

The only way to get a little detail of the moon is during a moonrise or moonset. Near the horizon the moon will be orange to reddish. This will bring some detail of the moon. As stated by Meta4, the wide angle shot will make it look further away. Plus zooming in only helps slightly.

I had the same question.....I'll keep trying.....

 

[DougMcC]

With a stable drone expose for the scene. Then take another shot underexposed by about 7-9 stops. Reduce the ISO to help in the underexposed stops. The moon is illuminated directly by the sun and is full daylight exposure. The two images if successful must be combined in post. It takes patience and manual control. Alas, the moon will be small in a wide angle shot. We are limited by real world physics!

 

[eEridani]

For whatever reason most people don't believe the moon is a full daylight exposure. Yep - the full is daylight, full sun and then some (no atmosphere to soften the light). Either capture the moon when it is seen through a thousand miles of Earth atmosphere (moonrise/moonset), though gobs of smoke or pollution, or use a gradient filter (hard to do on a drone, but someone must sell them).

Wow - just looked and found these - first ones I came to - but they do exist:

https://www.amazon.com/Freewell-Landscape-Gradient-Filters-Compatible/dp/B07JHMP8TC

 

[adcimagery]

Yeah, the exposure difference between a landscape and the moon's surface is massive. A "proper" exposure for the moon is going to be way too dark for the land, so I'd suggest shooting two exposures and merging in post. An HDR merge would be possible but would result in way too many frames. Even merging a single moon shot might be tricky, as there'll be a lot of ambient glow/flare/whatever from the ambient shot.

 

[Meta4]

Yeah, the exposure difference between a landscape and the moon's surface is massive. A "proper" exposure for the moon is going to be way too dark for the land, so I'd suggest shooting two exposures and merging in post.

But the size of the moon shot with the drone's camera (see the first image in post #5) makes it too small to make any effort worthwhile.

 

[adcimagery]

But the size of the moon shot with the drone's camera (see the first image in post #5) makes it too small to make any effort worthwhile.

My answer is to the question “how do I get detail in the moon?”, with the examples showing it being overexposed.

At 24mm-ish focal lengths, you won’t get a good photo of the moon via any method, but understanding what goes into the exposure aspect is applicable across other cameras and subjects.

 

[rcourtney671]

Likewise couldn't get the shot detail I wanted, so recorded this clip while playing around with the Air 2S zoom feature and kinda like the effect.

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[LA 2020]

The wideangle lens of the drone camera makes it about the worst possible tool to photograph the moon.
If you want to photograph the moon and show any detail, you need a real camera with a telephoto lens.
With a wideangle lens on any camera, the moon will be an overexposed blur.

A rule of thumb for exposure is to get a reading during a normal sunny day (not directly at the sun) at the sky. That will be close to the correct exposure for a night moon shot. Remember the camera on automatic sees a lot of black around the moon so the shutter opens wide. This washes out the moon. You need to override the shutter and close it down to get the moon's correct exposure.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

If there is a Trick to shooting the Moon than I dont know what it is.. That moon is very elusive , and does not want to be photographed by the drone.

I find it near impossible to capture any detail in the Moon .

View attachment 135073

Flying at Night Protect those above you.

View attachment 135074

View attachment 135076

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly your air 2s in the Rain and Capture the storm.

Looks to me like you captured it pretty good.

 

[Phantomrain.org]

Looks to me like you captured it pretty good.
View attachment 135310

That is fantastic, I was thinking along those lines to add a little trickery to make the night pictures pop, Well done. I love it. Thank you

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly in the Rain.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

That is fantastic, I was thinking along those lines to add a little trickery to make the night pictures pop, Well done. I love it. Thank you

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly in the Rain.

The magic of AI editing

 

[davery87]

Saw the same thing this week, as seen in the attached photos (was using my E2P with its 1" sensor). The one with the moon was way over exposed even with the moon near the horizon, while the 2 in the direction opposite the moon captured much more detail of both the landscape & horizon, and the stars & Venus in the western sky.

 

[Kentucky Ranger]

The wideangle lens of the drone camera makes it about the worst possible tool to photograph the moon.
If you want to photograph the moon and show any detail, you need a real camera with a telephoto lens.
With a wideangle lens on any camera, the moon will be an overexposed blur.

My trick, and it really works well, is to take the pic, then photoshop a clean image of the moon in later.