October Golden Hour Hunter Super Moonrise - New Mexico
Oct, 2016Views
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Action Award
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Contest Finalist in Long Exposure Experiments Photo Contest
Contest Finalist in The Moonlight Photo Contest
Contest Finalist in Desert Views Photo Contest
Contest Finalist in The Moon Photo Contest
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Behind The Lens
Location
This image was taken with special permission from the National Park system for a super moon rise last year during a night photography workshop at Dripping Springs Area, part of the Organ Mountains - Desert Peaks National Monument in New Mexico. It’s a compostite of two images shot back to back, one wide angle to get the scene and then changed lenses quickly and shot the moon with a long telephoto in order to get a closer compressed proper exposure for the moon since wide angles make objects in the distance seem much tinier than they actually appear and the long exposure for the foreground naturally completely blows out the exposure for the bright moon.Time
Moonrise - sunsetLighting
Well the lighting is all natural thanks to the full moon and long exposure. Often I utilize multiple low level lights with extra long exposures for the foregrounds, but with the moon, there was plenty of natural light to work with. You really have to hope for no wind to keep the foliage sharp on a sturdy tripod at ISO 100 to reduce noise, and a fairly high F stop (I believe around f/16 maybe here focused at the hyper focal distance to get everything sharply in focus with a deep depth of field. I was very fortunate to have a calm night with which to keep the shutter open for a clear shot.Equipment
Shot on a Canon 5D Mark III body, a fast 24mm manual Rokinon Prime and a fast Canon L series telephoto on a sturdy Siri carbon fiber tripod. Setting the camera to mirror lock and using a tethered intervolometer helped me ensure to get the least amount of camera shake to keep the image clarity very high. I don’t use long exposure noise reduction like most of my Nikon friends have to do because these Canons rarely have any hot pixel problems during long exposures like the Nikons seem to be plagued with. Canon USA.. thank you very much. I can get twice the exposures as my Nikonian buddies thanks to your nice sensors.Inspiration
Well, I often shoot with a small group of close shutterbug friends, and we make it a competition to get in the best image. It’s all in good fun, and we get together online and post our results and then critique the heck out of each other’s images which makes everyone get so much better with every outing. I highly recommend getting yourself a close group of photographers to shoot and/or share images with for constructive criticism. This dynamic has done so much to improve my photography, not to mention how it motivates us all to get out and shoot quite often which is wonderful.Editing
Yes, of course. As I mentioned above, I needed to blend two different exposures to get the image closer to the way it appeared in person, so a standard workflow using Adobe camera raw, and then a few hours in Photoshop to blend the images and some subtle dodging and burning to increase the sense of dimensional depth, and then a sharpen treatment and some noise reduction in the sky and voila! I generally duplicate my image and process on for the sky and the other for the terrain and then blend the two separately treated layers together to get a more natural and balanced overall look to the image.In my camera bag
I carry two camera bodies, a Canon 5D Mk III and a Mk IV with two carbon fiber travel tripods, various lenses and filters including high quality color neutral CP and ND filters, an intervolometer, spare batteries, several low level lights with ultra light weight tripods constructed with hollow aluminum tent tubes held together with elastic strings inside. I usually bring a roll of variously color correcting gels as well, and snivel gear, a cheap-o shower cap to cover the camera in case of rain and a backpack to tote it all in. It usually weighs in at about 40-50 pounds, and then a good pair of boots, an iPhone or iPad Pro with a ton of photography apps including the mandatory PhotoPills, then mandatory snake guards and high end special forces gel cushioned knee pads for my wrecked knees so I can kneel comfortably and get snake bit in the family jewels when I kneel on a rattler.Feedback
Well the best advice is to form a small group of about 10 or less photographers at various levels of experience to motivate each other to get out and shoot often as well as motivate you to try your hardest, share ideas and knowledge, and then constructively wreck your favorite images forcing you to improve. This and of course some of the equipment I mentioned I used above and you can’t lose. Above all, approach shooting letting the inner kid within you to drag yourself all over the desert to in order to database the compositions you discover and even more above all, bring your motivation to have fun. It’s what it’s all about after all. Good friends and fun and growing list of increasingly great images.
