Including the Moon and Keeping Detail

©ISTOCKPHOTO

This sounds like it would be easya nighttime city skyline with a crisp detailed moon in the background, but most people wind up with a totally overexposed bright white circle, rather than the detailed moon shot they were hoping for. That's because it's just about impossible to get both the city (which takes a long exposure) and a detailed shot of the moon (which takes a very short exposure because it's actually quite bright) in the same shot. So, what photographers have been doing for years is creating multiple exposures (two images captured in the same frame). Now, there are some digital cameras today that let you create double exposures, but it's just as easy to take two separate photosone of the city, one of the moonand combine them later in Photoshop. First, start with your nighttime city skyline. Use a wide-angle lens (maybe an 18mm or 24mm), put your camera on a tripod (an absolute must), set your camera to aperture priority mode, choose f/11 as your f-stop, and your camera will choose the shutter speed for you (which may be as little as 20 or 30 seconds or as long as several minutes, depending on how dark the city is), then take the city skyline shot. Now switch to your longest telephoto (or zoom) lens (ideally 200mm or more). Switch to full manual mode, and set your aperture to f/11 and your shutter speed to 1/250 of a second. Zoom in as tight as you can get on the moon, so there's nothing but black sky and moon in your shot (this is criticalno clouds, buildings, etc.), then take the shot. Now add the moon to your city skyline in Adobe Photoshop (visit www.scottkelbybooks.com/moon to see my step-by-step Photoshop tutorial on how to do this).