Saturday, February 19, 2011

Full Moon Fever

The moon has put on quite a show over Xenia this week!







 And a final one of a slightly waning moon on 2/19

11 comments:

Kat Mortensen said...

That second one is like Saruman's eye, isn't it? These are all magnificent, Michael. I find the moon intoxicating—always have.

Kat

Reya Mellicker said...

Oh man. I'm gonna start howling again!!

Did you take these pictures? They're beautiful - and scary. Thanks. xx

Carolina Linthead said...

Kat: I do find the moon intoxicating, in the not-waking-up-with-a-hangover sense, which makes it the opposite of moonshine, for example. Hey, I was born and raised in the southern Appalachians...I know a thing or two about moonshine :-)

Reya: Yes, I took them over the last couple of days. I have taken a number of moon pics with our Nikon for The Bug over the last year, but mostly I just shot for the light effect, not trying to capture the face of the moon. But this moon was so spectacular last night, and I was frustrated, as I was too tired to remember what settings I needed to make. So anyway, I got up before dawn this morning and took the ones where you can see the craters.

The Bug said...

So THAT'S what you were doing. Good job!

ellen abbott said...

beautiful photos! All I ever get is a big ball of light.

Jayne said...

Gorgeous! I went out to get the paper Friday morning and that full moon was behind a stand of trees and looked so eerily beautiful. I wish I'd had time to get out the tripod and get some shots of it with the trees in front, but had to get ready to go. These are all so wonderful!

Carolina Linthead said...

Thank you, Jayne! Mostly I just point and shoot, but the moon demands more effort, as in relearning old tricks. I do seem to recall a spectacular moon pic from you not long ago...yes, here it is:
http://journeythroughgrace.blogspot.com/2011/01/things-you-see-on-driveway.html

Carolina Linthead said...

Ellen: you have to make manual adjustment to under-expose, same as you would on a bright sunny day when you're trying to compensate for glare, etc. Auto settings, even on our Nikon D-5000, will not do this with the moon. To get these, I switched to shutter priority and worked my way down from fastest shutter speed to slower, giving me a set of pics from very dim, detailed moon (not pictured) to bright ball of light moon(last picture).

In terms of manual set-up (assuming camera can be manually set up), one can begin with the old "sunny sixteen" rule for 35mm SLRs: film speed ISO 100 or 200, f-stop (focal ratio) of f/16, shutter speed 1/100 or 1/200 to match film speed. From this basic setting, increasing shutter speed will give you less exposure time, decreasing f-number will let in more light.

altar ego said...

What phenomenal shots, Dr. M. There are some nights when I would sell something valuable to have a lens to photograph the moon. Especially through the branches of the trees in our front yards. Or poking through grey-black-black clouds, or hanging out with some stellar brights. Lovely.

Gerry Snape said...

These are just stunning. When I was a teenager and had a crush on a gorgeous looking german lad...I used to say goodnight to the moon and hope that he was looking at it too! mad kid, but I still adore it. Mum used to change the rooms around on the full moon. If you sneaked into your bedroom late at night without putting on the light..you got very confused!

Tess Kincaid said...

Wow, the ones with the craters are marvelous. That old devil moon put on quite a show over in my neck of the woods, too!