How to capture nature’s beauty with your phone or camera

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WHEC) — The full “Hunter’s Moon" is out and many of us want to capture the beauty of nature on our handheld devices, but how can we do so without over-exposing it or having the image turn out blurry?

“The most important thing is that your device, whichever you are using a camera or a phone, is stable. That can be with a tripod or any device that holds the phone or the camera,” said Jessica Kamens, the owner of JessKamens Photography.

Another helpful tip to capture the moon is to make sure your phone can adapt to the nighttime darkness, and if it isn’t, there are means to fix that issue.

“On our phones, it is great if you have a night sight. Androids have a night photograph setting. On iPhones, you can purchase an app that is specifically designed for meteor showers or long exposures. What happens is the shutter will open up and for however long that shutter is open it will capture whatever is moving throughout the screen and the longer that it stays open, the more clear the picture will be,” mentioned Kamens.

Another issue that many of us run into when utilizing our phones is that it is overexposed and shows up as a bright ball of light on our screens, but our phones can manage that as well.

“Make sure you press your finger directly on the moon," Kamens said. "On and Android, there is a little slide that will come up. I believe you have to press something on an iPhone to get that slide that comes up for exposure and slide that exposure up or down. I highly recommend underexposing which means sliding it down, making the picture a little darker so that the moon doesn’t just look like a giant ball in the sky."

Switching gears over to personal cameras, Kamens says the best way to capture images like the moon would be to manually focus your camera.

“The most important thing is when you are using a DSLR camera you will be manually focusing instead of automatic focus," Kamens said. "Most lenses will have an “A” or an “M” so you can switch from automatic to manual focus.”

Kamens also preaches you will also need to adapt to the surroundings based on how much light is available.

“The ISO, or the film speed, that setting might need to go pretty high because it is very dark and then lowering that shutter speed and using a nice wide-angle lens to get a lot of the sky,” Kamens said.

If you would like to learn more about your phone or camera Kamens recommends getting lessons or searching on the internet for videos of how to use your camera or phone.