moon

December 21, 2010October 8, 2014

Lunar eclipse, December 20, 2010

Last night I stayed up late to photograph the lunar eclipse from my front patio. While not the best of locations as far as light pollution goes, it doesn’t matter that much for moon photography, given the moon casts off so much reflected light. I started photographing just before 11pm, as the earth’s shadow was just touching the outer edge of the moon. The progression was as follows:

The earth's shadow moves across the moon

The earth's shadow consumes more than half of the moon

The moon reflects a dull red from the shadow of the earth

The last photo was taken at the peak of the eclipse, with the sun and the moon on exact opposite sides of the earth. To understand why the moon glows red when fully in the earth’s shadow, it is easier to think of what the earth would look like from the moon. From the moon’s perspective, at the peak of the eclipse, the earth would be ringed with red outline of the sun. It would be like watching all sunrises and sunsets all across the planet, all at the same time. This red wavelength is cast by the earth’s atmosphere into the earth’s shadow (the center of the silhouetted earth, ringed by the sun), which is then reflected by the moon back to us as a dull red glow. It was definitely a cool phenomenon to witness and photograph.

October 31, 2010January 14, 2013

Moonset Over The Sierra (Photo of the week)

A crescent moon glows in the warm colors of sunset as it sets behind the crest of the Sierra.

This week’s shot was taken a few weeks ago from high atop the crest of the White Mountains, at about 11,500 feet elevation. The moon was setting about half an hour behind the sun, providing an opportunity for a nice crescent moon, lit up by the dramatic colors of sunset. My particular location allowed me to anchor the photo with the silhouetted crest of the eastern Sierra, giving the image weight and a sense of scale and perspective.

On the technical side, in order to achieve this photo, I had to pull out all the stops. In order to keep the shutter speed down, I bumped up my ISO to 200 (I try to shoot most of my landscape work at 100). I didn’t want to go any higher, so I could keep the dark, rich tones of the sunset relatively noise free. I used my 100-400L lens at 310mm, and locked it down onto my tripod. I also made sure to turn off the image stabilizer, because if it kicked in here, it would most likely lead to a blurrier photo than I’d get without it. Finally, I locked up the mirror and set the camera to a 2 second self-timer mode. Unlike Nikon, with the 2 second self-timer, Canon cameras will lock the mirror when you press the shutter release, wait two seconds, and then trip the shutter. This allows the camera itself 2 seconds to settle down after being rattled by the vibration of the mirror slap. Normally, none of this matters, but at this magnification along with the 1.3 second shutter speed I used, even small vibrations will degrade the photo. I framed my shot, held my breath, and pressed the shutter release. Two seconds later I had the photo I wanted.

March 3, 2010January 14, 2013

Creativity tip #1 – Shoot close to home

After The Storm — Turning orange and yellow at sunset, clouds are reflected in the still waters of the San Francisco Bay. The sky has been cleansed by a passing storm. Foster City, California.

Don’t wait for the weekend or vacations to get out the camera. Take one along with you as you go about your every day life. You never know when you might have an opportunity to capture something unexpected.

Even when I don’t have my camera with me (which isn’t TOO often!), I’m constantly on the lookout for interesting ideas for photographs. I get especially excited when I see opportunities for shots that are outside of the subject I normally shoot (nature, landscape, wildlife, etc). This helps keep my creativity going, especially when I’m stuck close to home for long stretches of time.

Moonrise Over The Bay — The moon rises over the San Francisco Bay at sunset.

While working one afternoon last week I could see out my window that there were some pretty interesting looking clouds lining up over the bay after a particularly wet winter storm had passed through. I quickly checked my tide chart and saw that it would be low tide right around sunset. It was a quick 5 minute drive out to the edge of the bay, and only 30-40 minutes out of my day. By being on the lookout for something that caught my eye during my day-to-day life, I was able to capture some beautiful colors in the heart of an urban environment of over six million people.

February 28, 2010March 20, 2019

Moonset At Dawn (Photo of the week)

On a recent morning out at the coast, I was lucky enough to have the conditions of a clear sky, a full moon, and a moonset close to the moment of sunrise. My goal had been to use my longest telephoto lens to zoom in on the moon and capture it setting over the horizon, or behind on offshore rock formation. By using my long lens, the moon would have appeared huge.

However, as soon as I got to my desired location (in the dark of course), I saw that the morning also brought with it the typical fog bank looming just off shore. Once the moon set behind this layer of cloud, it would be gone – long before ever reaching the horizon.

I now had to quickly decide what kind of image this new challenge would allow me. With the rising sun behind me, I was sure to get some interesting colors off of the fog. The telephoto lens would no longer work for this composure because with no strong elements (only moon and fog), the photo might lack interest. I looked around and saw and old fence that could serve well as a silhouetted foreground. I set up my tripod with my 24-70mm zoom just in time to capture the moon before it disappeared behind the fog.