5 Tips to TIMELAPSE the Moon
Hey, Welcome back to another post!
Every month, if the weather conditions are right, you have the chance to get a cool timelapse of the full moon or a crescent moon, rising and setting behind a building or subject of your choice. so, today I want to give you 5 tips on how to make the best of it!
Tip N1 Planning
Ok, Planning it’s very essential, it is very unlikely that you will show up to a spot and get the perfect alignment of the moon with the subject! So, first of all, get, if you haven’t already, PhotoPills and watch some of their in-depth tutorials to learn how to use it. It is the best tool you can get to make a great Full Moonrise or Moonset timelapse.
But, In short, on Photopills you select the two pins, the red pin is where you are shooting from and the black pin is what you are shooting at, If you have the “Show Moon Size on”, zoom in and you can see the size of the moon compared to the subject. You can also see the elevation of the moon, so you know more or less if the moon is above, below or behind the subject.
Ah, and remember the further away you are from the subject the bigger is the moon
Tip N2 Steady tripod
Having a sturdy tripod is a must! because if you zoomed in at 400mm even a mosquito landing on your lens will move it. So you need a sturdy tripod! I would suggest getting an aluminium or carbon fibre that can handle at least 8Kg. Or you can also hang your bag on the tripod to stabilise it with its weight.
Tip N3 Lens support
If the wind is too strong for only a tripod, then you might want to get lens support, I use two, depending on how strong is the wind.
The Neewer lens support and the SliderKamera Dual support, which is much more stable but also much more expensive. However, if you have a second tripod laying around, a good tip is to use the second tripod, attached to the camera to get better support.
Tip N4 Focus
Focus is a bit tricky sometimes and also subjective, if you want to focus on the moon that is not yet visible at the time you are shooting, you need to focus at infinity or the day before focusing on the moon and remember where the focus was.
It is much easier If you want to focus on the subject, as it will be visible at the time of the shoot.
Tip N5 Interval
The interval has to be as fast as possible because the moon at 400mm moves very fast, and the entire shoot will last only a few minutes, so I would normally use a 1-sec interval, to get a smooth movement and at least 10/15 seconds timelapse.
And that’s it! let me know in the comment if you have other tips to share with everyone that I haven’t talked about.
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Thanks for reading!
