I've been wanting to get a nice moon shot over Jordan Lake for some time. On Wednesday, the moon was pretty spectacular and one phase short of full; when I saw it, I was pretty bummed because I thought I'd missed my chance.
Even so, I decided to head out to the lake on Thursday night to see what I could get. Moonrise was 8:36 PM. I worried that I would have too little light for a good shot. For all its merits, my camera doesn't do great at high ISO settings, and I really wanted to get the moon shot with some sunlight still lighting the night sky. Sunset was 8:21 or so tonight, so I thought it would be tight.
These sorts of shots are tough, because the window of opportunity is so short. At best, I get a good shot 1 out of 20 attempts, and I had only a few short minutes to make it work (with long exposures limiting how many takes I could get in during that interval). Additionally, it's a tough exposure. When the moon is still low in the sky, you need a pretty long exposure. That's nice because it also lets you catch the trees and lake (even though dark). However, a tripod becomes essential with those 2 and 3 second exposures. And then, as the moon rises and gets brighter, those longer exposures start to cost you some definition.
This shot ended up being my favorite. By the time I took it, it was a little darker than I had wanted for the shot, but I was having tripod issues a few minutes earlier when the light was brighter, and as a result, the moon came out a little blurry on those shots.
2 comments:
I seriously love the indigo and pink together. How big can you get prints made from your camera?
That's a good question.
I've printed 5x7s that looked great, and I just ordered an 8x10. Beyond that, I think it probably depends on the shot. Unfortunately, in low light settings, my pictures tend to become pixelated. This shot looks pretty good on my computer screen, but bigger than that, I bet it would be pretty grainy.
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