The timing of my most recent Disney trip happened to coincide with the full moon. This meant the moon was nearly full and very bright the entire trip. Most obviously this gives you a new element to play with in your shots as you can frame the moon in your shots to add some interest. Perhaps less thought of is the fact that when you are shooting night time shots with a full moon, the moon helps to illuminate your shots. Go outside during a new moon and compare the light to when the moon is full. The surroundings are so lit up it’s practically day time! This is especially great for shooting some of the more dimly lit areas of the parks as it gives you just the extra light you need so you don’t need to do a super long exposure and run the risk of introducing noise to your shot.
Shooting & Editing The Moon & The Seas
This was shot with the Nikon D810 and Nikon 14-24 2.8. There are some very strong highlights in a few areas of this shot so to create my base layer I ended up using 2 underexposures to blend in with my baseline exposure. Beyond that some light color balancing and a few levels adjustments were all that were done to this image before finishing it off with sharpening.