Super Blue Moon Wednesday evening!

[David MacNeill]

My first "serious" photography attempt with my new Air3 will be tomorrow evening at moonrise. We live at the end of a cul-de-sac in a leafy suburb at around 2500 ft elevation. Our street points straight East, so I plan to launch from the center of the circle to get above the trees and houses as Luna rises, probably around 50-100 ft. I'd like to get some buildings in the distance to contrast with the super moon, which has the effect of making it look even bigger than it really is. I hope it isn't too windy!

Anybody else ever try to shoot the Moon? Any advice would be most welcome.

 

[Meta4]

Anybody else ever try to shoot the Moon? Any advice would be most welcome.

The full moon attracts many forum members as a subject and there are many threads about it.
Your drone is about the worst possible camera to shoot the moon.
The wideangle lens makes everything look smaller and further away, so the moon will only be a tiny spot in the image.
The brightness of the moon is so much brighter than the darkness of the surrounding sky that you cannot easily get the moon properly exposed and it will look like a bright, overexposed, featureless smudge.

Here's what the full moon looks like when shot with a drone.
Before dark when there is still light in the sky, it's just a tiny white circle:

If you wait until after dark, it's going to come out as a small, fuzzy ball of glare:

 

[David MacNeill]

The full moon attracts many forum members as a subject and there are many threads about it.
Your drone is about the worst possible camera to shoot the moon.
The wideangle lens makes everything look smaller and further away, so the moon will only be a tiny spot in the image.
The brightness of the moon is so much brighter than the darkness of the surrounding sky that you cannot easily get the moon properly exposed and it will look like a bright, overexposed, featureless smudge.

Here's what the full moon looks like when shot with a drone.
Before dark when there is still light in the sky, it's just a tiny white circle:

If you wait until after dark, it's going to come out as a small, fuzzy ball of glare:

I plan to use the Air3’s medium telephoto camera.

 

[Meta4]

I plan to use the Air3’s medium telephoto camera.

That would make a very small difference.
It's still not going to look very good or particularly big.

 

[BigAl07]

Good luck and it's worth your efforts but @Meta4 has a good bit of experience on this and his advice is pretty much spot on. While the idea of a Drone Photograph of the moon from a whole new perspective is very exciting, it's simply one of the worst "cameras" you can use for a Moon shot.

Keep in mind that some photographers never ever get a single good Moon Shot with highly specific cameras let alone our "Go Pro" type cameras.

Good luck and we look forward to your results

 

[David MacNeill]

That would make a very small difference.
It's still not going to look very good or particularly big.

We’ll see. I have nothing better to do since I retired as founding editor-in-chief of Digital Camera Magazine.

 

[EssenYVR]

Anybody else ever try to shoot the Moon? Any advice would be most welcome.

Flying your drone to the moon would violate the 400' maximum altitude restriction...

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

Just be sure to wait until the drone has a good GPS signal and possibly a white coloured satellite etc. icon before it launches otherwise the drone may end up in ATTI mode ....... although it does have that "Auxillary light" which may give it VPS position holding.

 

[Droning on and on...]

We’ll see. I have nothing better to do since I retired as founding editor-in-chief of Digital Camera Magazine.

Impressive, seriously.

I'd ask then, given your knowledge and an examination of the camera specs for the A3, why don't you agree with @Meta4?

Seems he made a very good case.

 

[David MacNeill]

Impressive, seriously.

I'd ask then, given your knowledge and an examination of the camera specs for the A3, why don't you agree with @Meta4?

Seems he made a very good case.

I actually do. I was just hoping to get a clear shot above the tree line. It wasn't size I was after, it was perspective. Wasn't exactly charmed by his defeatist tone, but he was right.

But alas, I tried this evening with the nearly full moon, but even through my Nikon with a 450mm lens it was a blurry orange mess. The afternoon winds brought in a lot of fire smoke from the East and it ruined everything. The A3 camera was worse: it gave me a small blurry orange mess.

But it's fun to play with any new camera system. All those years of film and then digital photography, from Kodachrome to iPhone 14, didn't help much with aerial photos tonight. I will try again tomorrow and hope the smoke clears for the real thing.

And it's worth mentioning that this A3 is my first drone ever and this was my second day flying and shooting with it. To say the least, I was not expecting much, I just wanted to play with my new toy, y'know?

 

[Droning on and on...]

But it's fun to play with any new camera system. All those years of film and then digital photography, from Kodachrome to iPhone 14, didn't help much with aerial photos tonight. I will try again tomorrow and hope the smoke clears for the real thing.

Give us those nice bright colors,
Give us the greens of summer,
Make us think all the World's a sunny day – Oh Yeah...

 

[David MacNeill]

Give us those nice bright colors,
Give us the greens of summer,
Make us think all the World's a sunny day – Oh Yeah...

Oh yeah.

 

[Dave Maine]

The standard way to get good moon pix is with a camera on a sturdy tripod, a good telephoto zoom (150-600), and an exposure set for the moon itself which will be very close to a daylight exposure, not one that is set by the surround darkness.

 

[Dale D]

My first "serious" photography attempt with my new Air3 will be tomorrow evening at moonrise. We live at the end of a cul-de-sac in a leafy suburb at around 2500 ft elevation. Our street points straight East, so I plan to launch from the center of the circle to get above the trees and houses as Luna rises, probably around 50-100 ft. I'd like to get some buildings in the distance to contrast with the super moon, which has the effect of making it look even bigger than it really is. I hope it isn't too windy!

Anybody else ever try to shoot the Moon? Any advice would be most welcome.

Try to read onPhotoPills
Google “PhotoPills “Moon
Dale

 

[KurtpH]

Flying your drone to the moon would violate the 400' maximum altitude restriction...

Oh come on, if a cow can jump over it, and I know that because I’ve seen it in print, surely our drones can hop over to it.

 

[Yogi053]

Flying your drone to the moon would violate the 400' maximum altitude restriction...

Yeah, but would you have enough Dilithium crystals for your battery? And at warp speed, you'll be there and back before anybody notices!

 

[FletcherAero]

to get good detail in the moon and keep it from being too bright you will need to greatly under expose your photo, should be able to bring back the foreground in edit though...

 

[MavicAir2Marc]

My first "serious" photography attempt with my new Air3 will be tomorrow evening at moonrise. We live at the end of a cul-de-sac in a leafy suburb at around 2500 ft elevation. Our street points straight East, so I plan to launch from the center of the circle to get above the trees and houses as Luna rises, probably around 50-100 ft. I'd like to get some buildings in the distance to contrast with the super moon, which has the effect of making it look even bigger than it really is. I hope it isn't too windy!

Anybody else ever try to shoot the Moon? Any advice would be most welcome.

I must say, I like your enthusiasm. I look forward to what you can create in the future.

 

[HoozierDroneDaddy]

Would the 27x on the M3 give your a close enough perspective to make a good shot. Just wondering.

 

[Dale D]

My first "serious" photography attempt with my new Air3 will be tomorrow evening at moonrise. We live at the end of a cul-de-sac in a leafy suburb at around 2500 ft elevation. Our street points straight East, so I plan to launch from the center of the circle to get above the trees and houses as Luna rises, probably around 50-100 ft. I'd like to get some buildings in the distance to contrast with the super moon, which has the effect of making it look even bigger than it really is. I hope it isn't too windy!

Anybody else ever try to shoot the Moon? Any advice would be most welcome.

Here is a video on hoe to photograph the super moon with a camera (not a drone)

Dale
Miami