Picture of the week

Oak Moonrise

The full moon rising behind a majestic valley oak tree.

I revisited my secret undisclosed location again to photograph my favorite oak tree with the full moon rising behind it.  Since discovering this tree and shooting location about 8 years ago, I have yet to find another tree that offers a better composition with the appropriate criteria for getting this type of shot.

I almost missed the capture this time due to a last minute snag in my time to get here and be in the correct position.  Each time can be different based on the angle of the moon rise and where I need to be positioned to get lined up with the oak tree.  In order to give the moon enough scale in comparison to the tree, I captured this photo by being located about one mile from the tree (if closer to the tree, then the moon will look correspondingly smaller).  This implies a supertelephoto lens is required to get enough detail of the tree.  In this case, I used my Canon EF 500mm L series f/4 IS lens with a 1.4x teleconverter on a Canon EOS 7Dmk2 body, shooting at f/8, 1/50 sec, and ISO 400. Based on the location, access to the necessary spot can sometimes be tricky, also requiring a quick repositioning after getting a fix on the actual moon rise location versus your prediction via the use of a compass.  This repositioning delay can often be the biggest limiting factor, as at this distance the moon only takes about 5 minutes to rise above the tree.

Other factors that can affect the outcome include how much atmospheric distortion due to amount of heat rising from the ground, weather/clarity of the sky, and of course having a clear angle on the tree.  Typically conditions are right for this about once or twice a year.

You can see other of my captures of this composition along with more astronomical related photography in my library here.