Night shooting...what time of night is the moon the brightest?

According to the calender, full moon was last night or the night before. But the moon's still pretty big tonight. I want to try some night shots. What time of night is the moon the brightest? Or, does brightness not always equal best lighting conditions for night shooting?

I would think that (technically speaking) the illumination of the moon never actually changes (unless there's an eclipse.)

The differences we see on Earth are due to both the quality (cleanliness) and quantity (elevation above the horizon and/or altitude of the viewer [higher = less atmosphere through which to have to look.])

Makes sense. I guess the elevations makes a difference in quantity of light. Guess I'll just try shots and different times and compares EXIF. Thanks!

it is still full moon tonight. I just took the pic. Beautiful moon.

Bubble wrote in post #6127886
it is still full moon tonight. I just took the pic. Beautiful moon.

The moon is a sunlit object, and requires exposures like any other object in direct sun. Both the sun and moon are subject to having the amount of light that reaches your camera influenced by the amount of atmosphere through which it passes.

That is why both the sun and moon change color as they near the horizon. The blue end of the spectrum is being scattered out of the light by the air, so that light is lost to your eye or camera. Makes for nice colors, however.

So the moon is brightest when it is directly overhead. I actually don't know just how many stops brighter it is overhead compared to on the horizon, but I suspect is a variable you would need to take into account. Just spot meter it, and you will know what to do.

When the moon is full brightness (10pm for example) you can use the moon exposure caculator.

http://www.adidap.com …moon-exposure-calculator/

This is from the other night. All I did was sharpen it a fair bit. I think full moons are too bright, other times when there is 3/4 moon (I don't know the terminology) you can get more shadows in the crators which is cool.

200mm cropped

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was going to try some moonshots later this week when its less than full. But looking out of my window recently it seems really low in the sky. I think, from googling, that its only high enough for me to take photos by 4am - don't fancy getting up that early! (especially with the cloud we've been having recently)

I'd try a timer release (something like the TC80) but I wouldn't know where I was aiming