The correct way to shoot a supermoon using your smartphone

You’ve probably been hearing the buzz around the ‘supermoon’ these past several days. If you haven’t, a quick catch up: the supermoon is a phenomenon that occurs when the full moon happens at or very near the time the moon is nearest to the Earth (a point known as perigee) during its elliptical monthly orbit. The moon’s orbit is in itself constantly changing, causing this perigee to itself shift--while the moon’s average ‘near point’ to earth is at a distance of about 384,400 Km, today it will be 27,891 Km nearer. This is the closest our planet’s natural satellite will have been to us since 1948, and it will appear 30 percent brighter and 14 percent larger than it usually does. What better time to shoot this heavenly rock?

Whether you’re using a smartphone or a DSLR, it is often challenging to shoot the moon. The reasons are twofold: the moon appears relatively small in the sky (so you have to zoom in,) and it is a very bright object suspended on a dark background (which results in it looking a little more than a ghostly, featureless globe in photos.)

But take heart--these techniques should help you capture that gibbous supermoon in all its glory.

Stay prepared

Other than just showing up this evening, pointing your phone at the moon and shooting it, spend some time preparing for it. Ensure that you have the necessary apps, that you’ve figured out a good place to view the moon from (your terrace, a beach, an open field) and makes plans to show up there on time (the full effect will happen specifically at 7:22 PM today.) If you plan to cart your DSLR along, make sure you take your tripod as well--shooting the moon from a stable vantage point will let you capture a sharper shot, other than risking blur due to a shaky hand.

Touching the horizon

To experience the full effect of the supermoon, make sure you catch it when it is as low as possible to the horizon--preferably even touching it. At this point, the diffraction of the moonlight as it passes obliquely through the Earth’s atmosphere lends it the illusion of being larger than it is.

If you’re located in a city, find places that give you direct line of sight of the horizon--challenging as it may be. A long East-West facing highway or a patch of open ground, or even heading to the city outskirts would be ideal. If you happen to be in the countryside consider yourself lucky--you should have a more unfettered view of the moon.

Compose the shot

Try to align the rising moon with a striking terrestrial feature such as a deserted house, a church, temple, or a looming tree--do so will impart more ‘drama’ to your shot. Also the larger size of the moon against a familiar Earthly object will make the supermoon more visually apparent. Also use zoom--preferably optical and not digital--while framing your shot for better results.

Exposure control

With the moon being so bright, there’s every chance that your smartphone may struggle with the exposure of the shot. To counter this, locate the ‘Exposure control’ in your smartphone’s camera app--look out for a [+/-] icon or a slider that’s part of the circular reticle used for focusing. Dialing down the exposure lowers the brightness in the scene, revealing more details in the moon. Also remember to lock focus on the moon by specifically tapping on it in your phone’s viewfinder. Lastly, keep your smartphone stock still--hold your hands against a wall or a lamp post while shooting. The more stable your phone, the sharper and the more detailed the photo will appear.

RAW support

Consider using a more capable camera app for capturing the shot. Something like Adobe Lightroom Mobile (available for Android and iOS) would work ideally, given its feature-rich interface, support for exposure control, and especially its RAW support. RAW images are files created directly from your camera’s sensor, letting you make subsequent edits to your shot without losing any detail--for a subject the like supermoon, this feature can be a boon. Go ahead and install the app and play around with it during the day before you set out to capture your lunar photography masterpiece this evening.