Full Moon Silhouettes is a real time video of the moon rising over the Mount Victoria Lookout in Wellington, New Zealand. People had gathered up there this night to get the best view possible of the moon rising. Astrophotographer Mark Gee captured the video from 2.1km away on the other side of the city. It’s something that he’s been wanting to photograph for a long time now, and a lot of planning and failed attempts had taken place. Finally, during moon rise on the 28th January 2013, everything fell into place and he got his footage.
The video is as it came off the memory card and there has been no manipulation whatsoever. Technically it was quite a challenge to get the final result. He shot it on a Canon ID MkIV in video mode with a Canon EF 500mm f/4L and a Canon 2x extender II, giving him the equivalent focal length of 1300mm.
One question he was asked about the video is: So how is the moon so big and people so small?
His answer: “Well it’s all about optics and distance from the subject. I shot this video on a DLSR camera with a super telephoto lens, so it’s just like looking at the moon with binoculars or through a small telescope. The people in front of the moon are small in comparison because I was 2.1kms away from them. I couldn’t see them with my own eyes as they were so far away, but when looking through the camera, they look exactly as they are in the film. If I was to move closer to the subjects, say only 1km away, they would have looked twice as big. The moon would have still been the same size in frame, but because the people look larger and you can use them as a point of scale reference, then the moon would have looked smaller in scale, even though it’s not. It’s the same concept as in the ‘moon illusion’.
Filed under: The Moon
