Best setting to photograph moon: How to shoot supermoon

The moon is one of nature's showoffs. Like the lady in "Sunset Boulevard," she's always ready for her close-up.

Well, not always. Once a month — sometimes twice — she turns the lights out, not wishing to be disturbed by paparazzi. "New moon," this is called by astronomers. "No moon," to the rest of us.

But the rest of the time, she goes through her poses like any runway model. From gorgeous full face to alluring half- and quarter-profiles, the moon knows how to make love to a camera.

This Aug. 30 is her big night. It's both a "blue moon" (the third full moon in a season that has four) and a "supermoon" (at its closest approach to Earth and therefore its brightest and largest). She will also be making a close approach to Saturn. That night — barring clouds — the moon will be in her glory.

But do you know how to take her picture?

It isn't quite as easy as asking her to smile and say "green cheese." That's why we've assembled an expert panel to assist you in taking the best moon shots ever.

Allow us to introduce Tariq Zehawi, award-winning photographer for The Record and NorthJersey.com, who has lassoed the moon as expertly as Jimmy Stewart in dozens of gorgeous images. His moonlit shots of the Statue of Liberty and the New York skyline would make Cher or anyone else cry "That's Amore!"

And we have Gary Hershorn, dean of lunar photographers and author of "New York Celestial," whose photos have been seen worldwide. Also Thomas Costello, veteran Asbury Park Press photographer, author and professor, who has made the moon a special study for years. And finally, Gary Swangin, former director of Paterson's Panther Academy Planetarium and consulting astronomer for Delaware State University.

"The moon has always been a delight, from the ancient times to the present," Swangin said. "Because it's our closest neighbor. To take your own picture is significant — because it's your own personal connection to an object 239,000 miles away. That's fascinating."

But shooting the moon, say these experts, isn't a no-brainer. In fact, it's very much a brainer.

Your moon mission, if you do it right, could involve almost as many calculations as Project Apollo. "There's a little bit of luck involved in this, but also a lot of math," Costello said.

Luckily, he and the rest of the panel are here to break it all down for you.

"So 250, at F/8, at 100 ISO, is the starting point — the setting for shooting the moon," Hershorn said. "Unless it's a hazy day and you have to compensate. You have to remember that the moon is reflecting the sun's light. It's like shooting bright daylight on earth."

"The one thing everybody needs to know is that you don't want to do an exposure more than 1½ seconds," he said. "The moon is moving. If you do a five-second exposure, the moon will have moved too much to render it sharp."

"I like to use a very long lens, over 400 mm," Costello said, "What you want to do is compress the moon and make it look larger."

You want to catch the tiny window of time between sunset and moonrise.

In the best photos, the light from the just-vanished sun illuminates the buildings, trees or other objects in the foreground, while not being bright enough to steal the moon's thunder. "Just after the sun sets is the best time," Hershorn said.

Hollywood filmmakers talk of a "golden hour" — just after sunrise and before sunset — when the light is optimal. For lunar photographers, there is a "golden minute." A few minutes, at most. "If the moon is rising at, let's say, 7 o'clock, and the sun sets at 6:50, there will be ambient light in the sky, which will light up everything in your foreground," Costello said. "Those are the best times."

Easier said than done. It requires precise knowledge of sunset and moonrise times, which change from day to day. If your name is not Pythagoras or Ptolemy, you may want to use an app for this purpose. Planit Pro and PhotoPills are two that Hershorn recommends. "It's quite impressive how these apps are so perfect and so accurate," he said.

Anyplace where there's something besides the moon to give it scale, or context. "Put something in the picture that isn't the moon," Hershorn said. "If you can put a city skyline in, that's great. A lighthouse, if you're out near the water. Nobody wants to see a picture of just the moon." A further — counterintuitive — tip: Make sure the object in the foreground is still some distance away from you. Maybe 6 or 12 miles, Hershorn said.

"A digital single-lens reflex is the standard camera people use today," Hershorn said. "It's the lens that's going to make the difference, You want a long lens that's able to compress."

It's a start," Hershorn said. "A lot of people have 150 to 600 mm lenses. And to top it off, many digital cameras have a crop sensor. So if I put a 300 mm lens on a camera with a crop sensor, it becomes a 400 mm lens. That's good. You get the effect of a longer lens."

You can, of course. Just don't expect professional results.

"Do not use the flash," Swangin said. "Turn it off. And if you can, take your smartphone and put it on a ledge or a fence or some kind of rigid structure, and put the camera on top of that. That will steady it. If you buy a tripod, you'll also need to get a mount for the camera."

You can. It may even be possible to use a smartphone.

Astronomical pictures, of course, are not the same as skyline photos. For instance, an astronomer would want to shoot the moon not on the horizon, but at the zenith, the highest point in the sky, where light-bending and atmospheric distortion is minimal. And shooting that way, you probably won't have an object in the foreground for contrast — unless a UFO putters by at just the right moment.

"With a smartphone, you might want to go with a spotting scope, anywhere between $60 and $100," Swangin said. "What you do is focus the moon in the telescope, and then put the smartphone over the eyepiece and hold it at a distance where you see the moon pretty clearly on the smartphone. That's the simplest way.

"There are also accessories that can be attached to the eyepiece of a smartphone to magnify the image a little brighter," he said. "You can get them from Amazon."

To actually mount a camera on the telescope, you will need a device called a C-mount adapter — formatted to your particular telescope. "You buy an adapter that uses the lens of the telescope combined with the lens of the camera," Swangin said.

To you, yes. To an astronomer, maybe not so much.

"I don't get thrilled with supermoons. I think other people do. It is the point where the moon is closest, the perigee, and that makes it look big," Swangin said.

"To me it's not that special. But don't tell anybody."

Need more tips? At your service. Tariq Zehawi, the veteran award-winning Record photographer, is a kind of Avedon of the moon — adept at making her look her smartest. Here are some of his suggestions.

∎ Use a camera with manual exposure controls, a long lens and a tripod.

∎ Lenses 200 mm or longer will compress the image and make the moon fill most of your frame.

∎ Place your camera on a tripod and set your camera to manual with these settings: (a) RAW or highest-quality JPEG format. (b) Turn off image stabilization. (c) Set ISO to 100. (d) Set aperture to F/11. (e) Start with shutter speed of 125th of a second and adjust as needed.

∎ Underexpose the moon to avoid having it look washed out.

∎ Use a remote trigger or self-timer to avoid camera shaking.

∎ Mobile phone apps such as The Photographer's Ephemeris or Sun Surveyor can help you find the exact location of the moon and advise you where to position yourself.

∎ For best results, the moon should be close to the horizon.

∎ Have a building or other object in the foreground for scale.

∎ The farther you are from foreground objects, the better.

∎ Practice in advance, before the supermoon.