The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

The blood-red ‘harvest moon’ rose over D.C. on Saturday. It was amazing.

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September 19, 2016 at 10:50 a.m. EDT
The harvest moon rises over Washington, D.C., on Sept. 17, 2016. (Video: Kevin Ambrose)

The harvest moon rose blood red behind the D.C. skyline Saturday evening. For a brief moment, from my vantage point at the Netherlands Carillon, the moon appeared to sit on top of the Capitol dome.

The harvest moon is the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox. It rose above the horizon due east, which lines up well with the orientation of the Mall. It makes for a wonderful opportunity to shoot the moon with the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument and Capitol.

I made the poor choice of taking Metro’s Orange Line from Vienna to Rosslyn for my photo shoot at the Netherlands Carillon. Delays from single-tracking between Vienna and West Falls Church almost caused me to miss moonrise, which was at 8 p.m. But I arrived at the Carillon just in time, and I found more than 50 photographers already set up with cameras and tripods waiting to shoot the rise of the harvest moon.

The photographers were arranged in three rows facing east. I quickly chose the left end of the middle row and set up two cameras with tripods. I had just enough time to take a few test shots to verify focus and exposure.

My primary camera is a Sony a7rII, which I set at f/8, ISO 800, 1.6 seconds. My backup camera is a Sony a99, which I set at f/7.1, ISO 400, 3.2 seconds. I used my Sony a99 to construct a video by locking down the cable release button for continuous shooting and then arranging and compressing the still images into a 1080p time-lapse clip. It’s easier to shoot video in the camera’s movie mode, of course, but I like to have the sequence of high-definition images to go with the video.

At 8:02 p.m., the moon became visible on the horizon between the Washington Monument and Capitol. “That’s beautiful,” a nearby photographer exclaimed. It really was a beautiful sight. Of the many moonrise photo shoots I’ve done over the years, this one was my favorite. In my opinion, a moonrise in Washington doesn’t get much nicer and photogenic than Saturday’s.

Included in this post are a few of my still photos from the evening with time stamps and my camera settings, and my video of the moonrise that I constructed with a sequence of still photos. Also included are some of the reader-contributed photos.