harleywiddowson
FollowGot a nice orange glow of my home town beneath the Super Blood Moon.
Got a nice orange glow of my home town beneath the Super Blood Moon.
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Behind The Lens
Location
I took this at Sywell country park in Northampton, UK. My home town which unfortunatly isn't very dark and consequently not very good for these kinds of photos. So instead of driving halfway across the country I decided to use the orange glow of the street lamps to add to the dynamic and add to the atmosphere of the shot.Time
The middle of the night, around 2AM. I managed to drag my girlfriend along with me and she didn't forget it! This was the night of the SuperBlood Moon last year when the moon is at its largest and is eclipsed by the earth giving it a Reddish glow. It only happens once every 30 years or so, I was very lucky as I'd just bought my first camera and was looking for a good photo when I saw it was happening on the news.Lighting
I wanted to get a reflection off the lake of the moon with the glow so that the trees would create a silhouette. It worked out really well in the end but I had to play around with the angles, which with long exposure times means I had to be patient but as the eclipse lasts only for an hour so speed was of the essence. I also had to make sure that I kept the shutter speed down as to not get star/moon trails as they move across the sky.Equipment
I used a Olympus OMDEM10 with the 14-42mm kit lens as well as a cosina 70-210mm telephoto lens with an adapter that I bought with my first ever SLR 6 months earlier the OM1 which I learnt the basics on. I have to say I hadn't figured out the live view feature on my OMDEM10 yet and was still guessing the exposure. However now I have learnt how it works I'm sure it would've helped greatly. I also used my dads old tripod which was nice and heavy to keep the camera still in the wind.Inspiration
YouTube. It's such a great resource with a wealth of information and advice from a community happy to help with any query for absolutely free!Editing
I used photoshop/Lightroom to composite a picture of the moon close up that I took with the zoom into the wide angle shot. This allowed me to get a more accurate representation of what the human eye could see. I could've blown the moon up much larger but it would have looked unrealistic and I wanted to capture the magic of that night accurately. I also increased the contrast to bring out the stars as well as getting the black silhouette completely black. It was also very good at reducing the noise from the ISO. But I'd have to recommend Nick Page on YouTube as he has an excellent tutorial on Astro photography that helped a lot!In my camera bag
What ever I can afford, being a student I don't have a very big budget, which is why film was a really good way to learn as you can pick up amazing cameras that teach you so much for very little. For this I had just bought my first digital camera and all I had was the kit lens it came with but that shouldn't stop you from getting amazing shots. I borrowed a tripod and set out looking for a good shot. See what you can borrow before you buy! Saves you buying something that doesn't suit your style.Feedback
Be unique. It's great when you start out to emulate what you see and you could do that so easily from following tutorials, which is great but nobody's interested in another photo of the eiffel tower. Look for new in everything, build on others who inspire you and always look out for opportunities to create something truly unique.