DJI Mavic, Air and Mini Drones
Friendly, Helpful & Knowledgeable Community
Join Us Now

Moon photos ?

Prmath

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 3, 2017
Messages
505
Reactions
245
Age
76
Location
NW FLa
Down here in Florida we are having a nice big full moon......wondering, has anyone attempted to photograph with the Hassy. Using the 11 Rule...... it Could produce really good Images.......
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Inspirephil
While I didn't set out to capture it, I've got a few shots with the moon in from my M2P and it's just a small blob in the frame - maybe 30-40 pixels across. I was exposing for the foreground though so the moon is blown out, although there's no reason why you couldn't expose to retain some detail in the moon. That's going to make it pretty hard to take a shot and make the moon the main feature of the image though, but perhaps a moonlit river with some nice reflections from the moonglow might work?
 
Down here in Florida we are having a nice big full moon......wondering, has anyone attempted to photograph with the Hassy. Using the 11 Rule...... it Could produce really good Images.......
Just a quick tip when attempting to take any picture with whatever equipment of our closest natural satellite. Don't try attempting to photograph a full moon. It's too bright and even if you get the exposure right, you won't see much detail on a full moon. That's because the sun is shining straight down on the surface and there will be no shadows. If you wait until the moon appears half in the sky you will get some lovely pictures with actual craters because the shadows will be long. Especially if you use some magnification....
 
Down here in Florida we are having a nice big full moon......wondering, has anyone attempted to photograph with the Hassy. Using the 11 Rule...... it Could produce really good Images.......

Sounds great, but I hope you're not flying at night; that requires an FAA waiver which is almost impossible to get. If you do manage a good pic, please post it here!
 
Sounds great, but I hope you're not flying at night; that requires an FAA waiver which is almost impossible to get. If you do manage a good pic, please post it here!

You'd want some colour in the sky for a good shot, so golden hour into blue hour would probably be best time to attempt a shot of the moon, and that's officially twilight, so it should be doable without a waiver. This page defines "night", as used in S107, as "the time between the end of evening civil twilight and the beginning of morning civil twilight" (Alaska is slightly different), so it does look like there would be a window there to legally grab a shot without a waiver.

I'd definitely recommend checking the times with a good sunrise/set calculator though, and note that there are different twilights; civil (the longest), nautical, and astronomical. Civil twilight is current the period about half and hour before/after sunset in Miami.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Krvelasco
I would love to shoot the moon with a normal camera and the focal length on the L1D-20c. But like @Prmath said, we would need a big gun on our drones :)

... but I learned at school, that there‘s something called „moon illusion“ (Moon illusion - Wikipedia). So even if the moon seems to be big, bright and for itself could be a motive for our human eye... it will be just a small spot, I think.
 
Shooting the moon itself is a no go with such a wide lens unless you're happy with a tiny dot in a frame, but you could try long exposures of moonlit landscapes.

For the moon itself you need at least 500mm and a high res camera to get something decent... to have it fill the frame you need about 2000mm equivalent.

 
Down here in Florida we are having a nice big full moon......wondering, has anyone attempted to photograph with the Hassy. Using the 11 Rule...... it Could produce really good Images.......
Here's an example of why it's pointless trying to photograph the moon with the wideangle lens on your drone.
Here's the moon (one day before full moon) rising at sunset.
DJI_0892a-XL.jpg

It looks big with your eyes, bigger with a tele lens, but it's just a pinprick with a wideangle lens.
At night, using the 11 rule: So What Is The Looney 11 Rule In Photography?
You would get a black rectangle with a tiny white circle.
If you expose to show some detail in the foreground, the moon will be a small, fuzzy, burnt out blob.
DJI_0071-106aa-XL.jpg
 
Last edited:
Shooting the moon itself is a no go with such a wide lens unless you're happy with a tiny dot in a frame, but you could try long exposures of moonlit landscapes.

For the moon itself you need at least 500mm and a high res camera to get something decent... to have it fill the frame you need about 2000mm equivalent.

Awesome
 
I would love to shoot the moon with a normal camera and the focal length on the L1D-20c. But like @Prmath said, we would need a big gun on our drones :)

... but I learned at school, that there‘s something called „moon illusion“ (Moon illusion - Wikipedia). So even if the moon seems to be big, bright and for itself could be a motive for our human eye... it will be just a small spot, I think.

Hold your thumb up at arm's length to cover the moon when it's high overhead and down on the horizon. You'll cover it completely in both cases. It looks bigger down low because you have objects to compare it to. It's an illusion.

And while you can't get good moon images with a wide angle lens, if there is a broken cloud layer, you CAN get some very dramatic shots.
 
For the moon itself you need at least 500mm and a high res camera to get something decent... to have it fill the frame you need about 2000mm equivalent.
That's about right.
I just stepped outside to make a quick grab shot with 500mm lens and the moon occupies about 20% of the height of the frame.
_DSC8024a.jpg
 
Down here in Florida we are having a nice big full moon......wondering, has anyone attempted to photograph with the Hassy. Using the 11 Rule...... it Could produce really good Images.......
In January 2018 I attempted taking photographs of the full moon here in Eugene Oregon but I was using my Inspire 2 with the x4s camera which has a 12mm focal length (approximately) and it turned out as a tiny speck in the sky.
In the picture below I did a little editing with The Lightroom CC mobile app but you can see that the moon is a tiny speck in the photo.
But I am wondering if you might be able to use the x5s camera with a 45mm lens and get a better shot? I just might give it a try at the next full moon.
That really doesn’t answer your question though but I just wanted to throw it in there anyway ;) !!
 

Attachments

  • 922DA84C-2E31-48F8-922B-D98C4BAC4FF6.jpeg
    922DA84C-2E31-48F8-922B-D98C4BAC4FF6.jpeg
    249.4 KB · Views: 85
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Billyboy72
Newbie to the Mavic Platinum used last night to shoot the moon over the river, bay beyond and ocean in the far rear (separated from the bay by DE Hwy 1 and the dunes shown as a thin strip). Had the camera/gimbal cover on. Would that have caused the small dot at 8 o’clock by the moon? All automatic and not even bracketed shots. Pure luck. 5F05D720-53E9-4D73-8EFC-4CFEAA0270EF.png
 
Down here in Florida we are having a nice big full moon......wondering, has anyone attempted to photograph with the Hassy. Using the 11 Rule...... it Could produce really good Images.......
As close as I could come M2P.Underexposed the photo and did some shadow boosting in Lightroom.Nahant Massachusetts and Boston skyline1.jpg
 
Hold your thumb up at arm's length to cover the moon when it's high overhead and down on the horizon. You'll cover it completely in both cases. It looks bigger down low because you have objects to compare it to. It's an illusion.

And while you can't get good moon images with a wide angle lens, if there is a broken cloud layer, you CAN get some very dramatic shots.
Of course, you get dramatic lighting and can get super photos in / with moonlight.

But I meant, you can’t get a „hero“ shot of the moon with our Mavics.
 

DJI Drone Deals

New Threads

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
131,206
Messages
1,560,902
Members
160,169
Latest member
cjd54