beginner - shooting advice.

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Shayne
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Good evening. This week end I will attempt to takes some pics at the beach with a full moon. The moon will be at its closes point on this day. The last time I was there I saw how the moon lit up the water and area all around. It was dark by the time I got there and I didn't attempt to take a pic but it was so beautiful it left a lasting impression on me. I really would like to capture this. I will be there way before dark this time so I will have time to set up. I was hoping that I could get some pointers on how to go about this. I think that exposing it correctly might be my biggest challenge (because it is so bright). As the sun sets I fear the water will be to dark and will not show up without the moon blowing out. Any advise would be great.
I'm using a canon t3i and have a choice of 17-55 ,2.8 lens or 50mm 1.8. Advise on which one to use would be great as well. My gut says 50mm but I'm not sure. I would hate to change at the beach.
Thanks again for your help.
 
The moon may well blow if you want to expose for detail on the water. An alternative is to shoot the water and not include the moon in the composition. Take advantage of the maximum reflected light from the full moon to illuminate the seascape. However.. you're going to be into long exposure territory and much of that detail in the water will be softened by the exposure time.

Definitely a time to have an experiment and try lots of different compositions and exposures to see what works with the scene around you.
 
Is this a case for taking two shots, one correctly exposed for the water, and another for the moon,and then compositing (? horrible word) them in PP ? Or is that sacrilege ?
Or just take bracketed exposures for HDR ?
 
A composite would look more natural..



This is a composite, the riverside and the moon were shot seperately with the camera on a tripod, I was then able to layer the two and place the correctly exposed moon onto the shot with the correctly exposed riverside. Ignore the fireworks, they were from a seperate exposure about 30 minutes earlier facing in a different direction.
 
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