This location in LaJolla, California is one I shoot frequently. The coast in this area is a favorite spot for couples to enjoy a glass of wine while viewing beautiful sunsets, and indeed I have some terrific sunset images taken here.  On this particular night, I decided to venture out and try my hand at something new for me ... moonlight photography.

I’m sure you’ve seen images like this, taken using extremely long exposure times. Some of them are stunning ... I really like the look.  I don’t know if they use moonlight or just some serious neutral density filters, but since it was a full moon, I headed down to the beach to catch high tide pushing the surf up into these crevices.  Unfortunately the surf action wasn’t as vigorous as I would have preferred, but still enjoyed the challenge of something new.

I did some research, and found that a full moon fairly high in the sky provides about 5% of the light of the sun.  I started with my Canon 1DsMark3, at ISO 3200 for 30 seconds as a quick way to get an idea of exposure time.  It was a little too much, so I set up the Hasselblad for a 6.75 minute exposure.  The challenge of course is each exposure requires an equivalent dark exposure to offset noise, meaning each exposure takes over 13 minutes.

I discovered several things during the  hour and a half I spent getting about 6 images ... for example focusing is pretty challenging.  I had a few LED flashlights and headlamps with me, but fortunately I also  had my son.  I had him walk out to a point that I decided would offer the right amount of depth of field, and he used a flashlight on the rocks at that point.  Even then I couldn’t manually focus, but fortunately that was enough to allow the camera to auto focus.  Needless to say, composing the shot is also pretty tough.  There was enough light that I could barely make out a silhouette of the rocks in the bright moonlight.

What I ended up with  wasn’t quite what I had in mind. I was hoping for more splashing of the surf, providing more of a misty look, but it still turned out pretty good.

I enjoy this look quite a bit.  I may invest in some ND 3.0 to 4.0 neutral density filters so I can try this with daylight.