The Moon, the Red-Ring and the Clouds

One morning, I was looking out of the window and I noticed the moon was still shining brightly in the sky. There were some clouds and a red-ring circling the moon. I wanted to photograph the phenomenon so I quickly went back into my room to grab my Canon 40D and the 100-400 zoom.

I took a few shots but was rather disappointed with the results! No matter how much I compensate, I just couldn’t get a proper exposure of all the three elements. I would either get a properly exposed moon without the red-ring and the clouds, or I get an over-exposed moon with the red-ring and the clouds.

Finally I decide to capture a properly exposed moon and a properly exposed red-ring and clouds picture then merge the two using Photoshop. Here’s the photo after PS.


Moment later, when the sun rises higher in the sky, the moon disappeared but the clouds formation became very interesting. The clouds were very thick and white and the sky is very blue. It is very interesting to see how the sky changes within a short period of time!