 🌕 I am enamoured with the moon. How about you? You think as a photographer I'd be photographing it's beauty ALL THE TIME. ~ Nope
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😱 Years ago I tried to make a photo of the full harvest moon rising... I always admired those glorious photographs of the full moon in all it's glory, spanning the full frame, fully detailed & sooo beautiful ~ I thought tonight's the night I'm going to make one of those!
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I prepared & planned my trip, went out to a secluded spot in the country well before the moon rise, set up my tripod and waited ~ yep it was a little unnerving being alone in the dark on a solitary country road but that's not the point of my story...
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The moon appeared and though I planned & prepared I had no idea HOW to photograph it's beauty and I made some photos - just not the one's in my mind's eye. Mr. moon was a tiny over-exposed spec in the night's sky 😳
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Deflated, I left that spot laughing at my naiveté but was pretty proud of the adventure I embarked on. To trek out in the dark country solo was brave for me. (not recommended for all)
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💥 FFWD many years later
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🌃 About a month back there was a possibility to see the Northern Lights here in South Western Ontario so naturally, I loaded up Abigail (&mom) into the car and trekked outside the city lights on a solitary country road and set up camp
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We anxiously awaited, anticipating their appearance. After several hours we saw a strange glow coming through the trees and wondered what it was.
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🌕 MR. MOON 🌕 I sprang out of the car, grabbed the tripod and nervously tried to snap some photos (remembering my inexperience & lack of success from many years prior)
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🎉I DID IT! I conquered. After a 10 minute span and several attempts. And while they're super cropped in and by no means stellar, they're good enough for me and I am soooo proud that I did it!
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and as for the northern lights ~ no luck but I did come away with a very proud moment.
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Shown here are the progression of photos from the start of my attempt to the finish. Note, the full frame photos of the moon are cropped in significantly (70-200mm lens)
1st Attempt 12:59am -Â
I sprang outta the car and got the tripod set up ~ I started with my 24-70mm (wide angle) lens to catch the scene. I rushed because the moon rises quickly, and I didn't want to miss it while it was still near the horizon. This is under exposed and I used auto focus and well, that was a mistake...
2nd Attempt - the moon rising just above the tree line. This one again, out of focus and incorrect exposure, but I wanted to capture a sense of place. We watched this bright light (to the right of the moon) in the sky for the longest time trying to figure out was it a star or a satellite and with a little research (after the fact), I learned that the bright orange dot to the right is Saturn ( who knew! )Â
3rd attempt - I quickly switched lenses, I wanted a full frame shot of the moon so time to gear up with the biggest lens in my kit my 70 - 200mm ( though still not quite powerful enough ) this is a super-duper crop in of the original to show the results of the moon pic. Being relatively close to the horizon the moon was a warm orange so I tried capture that - again , using auto-focus I didn't quite catch on by this point .. but baby steps right 😉
4th Attempt - Changed with my exposure as the 3rd attempt I found was just a little too orange for what my eye was seeing. Now this one was a little under exposed, but I do love the mood. On a positive, I started manually focusing and am starting to see a bit more definition in Mr. Moon 🎉
Last Frame - 1:10am I shot the last shot, before Mr.Moon slipped higher in the sky! This was for all the marbles! Making a couple adjustments to my focus and exposure, I got it! I was able to see detail from the craters and I was ecstatic! I did it ~ success 🎉 Since this is a crop it is not quite as sharp as I would like it to be, but I'll take it!
What a beautiful sight! The sun reflecting off the moon, the curvature of the darkness casting onto the moon making it appear like an inflated crescent moon. Simply lovely • purely delightful!Â
And to give you some context... this is the full frame, those lines, that's the cropping box , so MAMMA NEEDS A NEW LENS! Â
