The Harvest Moon is a big, warm, typically golden-hued moon that usually occurs in September or October. Listeners, you’ll want to set up at Moonrise if you want to do this. At that time, it seems gigantic and creates a dramatic effect along every landscape possible—cityscapes, mountains, lake shores, or anywhere you can go. For this fall, I plan on a walking path surrounding Calgary’s southwest end.
When it rises, listeners will want to double-check that your settings are correct: ISO is probably on its lowest setting, 100 or 200 for me. Honestly, listeners might want a relatively wide aperture. I haven’t decided yet whether to use my 70-300 mm or 150-600 mm lens. I might even use both. I recommend using a tripod because the last thing you want is a less-than-clear picture of the moon. You want great detail. I suggest you go somewhere where you can see the moon through trees, fields, or any type of foreground corresponding to an urban environment. It is an ode to the word’s literal meaning, not just the cultural meaning. This Harvest Moon is an ode to autumn.
Understanding the Harvest Moon
The Harvest Moon—usually the September or sometimes October full moon—signals the changeover to autumn. This full moon is noted for its rise time, relatively close to sunset. As a result, for several successive evenings, the moonrise comes shortly after the sun sets, which leaves little or no darkness in between and provides extra light to the farmer during a critical time of the year to continue harvest.
In general, the moon will appear at its most significant (and give a more colorful appearance) when positioned on the horizon. Here, the light coming from the moon has to pass through the maximum amount of Earth’s atmosphere, which can cause some diss and refracted light (affecting the color).
Culturally, the Harvest Moon is a big deal for many. It’s a worldwide event with many other cultural tenets, from official calendar names to songs and festivals. In many cultures, it symbolizes a time of abundance/ and gratitude. The September or autumnal equinox full moon tends to be large and round. It’s also inherently a symbol within many cultures and occasionally marks calendars.

Best Times and Locations for Harvest Moon Photography
Photographers looking to capture the Harvest Moon will want to plan their shoots during the full moon phase or a day before or after the full moon. This is because the moon rises at a certain point just after sunset, offering extraordinary lighting conditions that make the sky a canvas of color. Using an app or watch that tracks the moon can help photographers understand the times when the moon rises and sets.
Photographers should also scout a shooting location that will give them the look they want while also helping them frame the moon. Maybe they want a more rural or scenic look—it depends on what the photographer wants to create. Any large park in a suburban area should work perfectly fine, and an ocean or cityscape should work. What’s essential is that photographers keep their eyes on the moon and know where it will rise as they prepare their gear.

Camera Settings for Full Moon Photography
You must know your camera settings well to get great shots of the Harvest Moon. A low ISO setting of around 100-200 cuts down on noise, and a wide aperture setting (for example, f/8 to f/11) keeps more of the moon in focus. Up above, I noted that the shutter speed would vary, so I pre-emptively set the camera to 1/125, though depending on the brightness of the moon (and other elements in your landscape), you may decide to shoot at faster shutter speeds up to 1/250 to not overexpose the moon.
Use a steady tripod to ensure maximum sharpness and long exposures. I selected a DSLR camera, locked the front of the lens with a polarizing filter to reduce the lens flare of the moon, and released the shutter using a semi-pro remote control on a tripod. If you’re just starting, buy a digital-sensor camera, a good tripod that isn’t heavy to carry, and a telephoto zoom lens. To take the best photos, similar to what I show above, I generally use a polarizing filter to reduce glare and enhance the contrast between the images on the moon’s surface so you can reference where I placed my tripod.
Creative Ideas for Incorporating Landscapes and Cityscapes
Frame the Harvest Moon with any natural features you can find—trees, mountains, water—that help give your scene a sense of depth and a context in which the moon can act as a point of interest. For instance, over a lake, you can capture the moon as it rises, with trees as a surrounding silhouette to help frame the image and add drama by allowing the moon to pop from the darkened tree line that lines the lake shore.
In the heart of a city, you’re typically trying to “get the shot” everyone wants. So, the process becomes more about dressing the landscape (not in drag, though that could be interesting) and trying to get the moon to appear where you want it and look as good, or as interesting, as possible.
Moon Photography Tips for Beginners
Moon photography can be tricky. Most beginners ruin the focus and exposure, which can usually occur when you keep the settings on automatically. Even in most cloudy settings, the moon is quite bright, and it’s easy to over-pose the photo and have too much light expose the image. As a result, you’ll lose some of the details on the moon, and it’ll start to disappear.
Don’t be afraid to change the settings to get the focus you need manually. Sometimes, the ISO may be set too high, and the shutter speed is too slow. If so, speed up the shutter and turn down the ISO to get the detail of the moon’s shapes and curves along the surface. Given the proper adjustments, you should be able to capture pictures as you’d like, whether you have a DSLR, a point-and-shoot, or a phone camera.
For my beginners, also be sure to have something to stabilize the camera against the ground, like a tripod, when you take these pictures from space. Even adjusting the focus causes the moon to come out blurry due to the camera shaking.
The idea of this article was to give you some tips—keeping in mind to use a tripod or monopod to give you a good solid base, the fact that this will be a typical exposure setting, and finally, some part of the foreground for spatial relevance—as to how, where, when, and in the fashion of what you should capture this upcoming season. I sincerely do not hope you will go out and do your best not to take pictures of the orange moon. If anything, relate this to everyone.
We would love for you to come back to this page sometime after the event and respond to this post with your shots of the moon. I am very interested in people’s unique settings for their 2017 Harvest Moon. Everybody has that “what I would do if…” This also may not be the best article to put out after you begin to gain a decent readership. You all should talk about it some or most of the time.