More "Gee Whiz" Info For Shooting At Night

Hello,

Well, just had a 2nd night of our "shooting the sun going below Deception Pass Bridge workshop". The weather's been hit-n-miss, but the sunset turned out great and everyone was capturing some great shots. I was busy helping students, so I'm hoping I was able to capture some nice shots too.  I'll go out again tomorrow, weather permitting. I'll get some images up here soon.  Here's a shot I got from before, tonight's sun was more to the left.

While I'm thinking about it - The reason for this post;  When we were hiking back to the cars, we all noticed an almost full moon slowly passing behind the clouds - Another great photo op! Maybe tomorrow.

So, with that came several questions from our group - How to Shoot The Moon - So, here's your next "Gee Whiz" shooting tricks for getting great moon shots - And an upcoming workshop. I'll add those photos samplers later.

There are two things you have to keep in mind when shooting the moon;

First - It's moving!  It can actually move a distance equivalent to its diameter every 2 minutes. What this means is that if you try to go for any exposure longer than a few seconds, it will warp itself out of shape - And, the longer the exposure, the more "wiener like" it's going to become.

Second, if you're going to try and have a great, properly exposed moon with great detail and no stretching, and expect some great detail with proper exposure for your foreground objects too - Forget it! There's just too much exposure range to capture them both.

The moon can be very bright on some nights which will cause your foreground to be underexposed. If you expose for your darker foreground - expect an overly blown out & stretched moon.

Now, if you're using a wide-angle lens and the moon is small in the sky, then movement isn't as much an issue. But if you've zoomed in for a unique "Big Moon" shot - Read on.

The trick, which has been performed since the dawn of film, is to make a double exposure. That is - shoot two exposures - One for the moon and another for the foreground, without moving the camera. In the 'old days', you would shoot the 2nd image without advancing the film. Actually, it was more work than that, but that was just how those film days were - Do you still miss them? Today, we can take a couple shots of each element, setting the exposure as needed in each frame, then simply combine them in Photoshop. This provides the added benefit of a lot more control over the final image, with no wasted film and developing fees.

Ah, another digital bonus - Since you've got great moon shots, save them to drop into other photos too! But you didn't hear that here.

Exposures for the foreground should be pretty straight forward (if not, stay tuned to this blog or our Alternative Focus blog www.alternativefocus.blogspot.com for more classes or email me with questions) so go ahead and capture a couple of images, paying attention to you composition skills, then move on to your moon shots.

Now, the trick for getting a great exposure on the moon surrounded by black sky - Start with an exposure of around 1/250 second at f8 and ISO 100 for a full moon, focused on infinity. Jog to about 1/125 or 1/60 for a crescent moon. Now of course, there's going to be a bit of leeway here, depending upon other conditions, but this will get you very close.

There, you now have enough of the basic tricks for great moon shooting. Now go out and practice, study how they came out, learn what worked and more important, what didn't work, and practice again.

We've received many requests, so now we're also putting together more night & low-light photography classes, as well as some star-trail shooting.

Stay tuned to this blog and more importantly our Alternative Focus blog (www.alternativefocus.blogspot.com) for upcoming classes.  You'll also find more info & links there to our Facebook, Twitter and everything else photography in the great San Juan Islands & Skagit Valley.

Thanks,
Tony

OK, OK - HERE'S A BIT OF "GEE WHIZ" INFO

As I prepare for tonight's sunset during equinox workshop, I've got a couple of odd facts for you.

First, the reason for this class on this date - The infamous Deception Pass Bridge, connecting Fidalgo Island to Whidbey Island, which literally has thousand of photos taken of it every year - with good reason - It's a great bridge to photograph.

But, only twice a year can you catch the sun setting directly below the arch of the main span of the bridge! This weekend is one of those times!

So get out there - Oh yeah, you don't know the secret spot to hike to. That spot which allows you to see the sun setting right where you'd like it.

Well, if you haven't already signed up for our workshop, you can either wait till spring for it, and our workshop to happen again, or shoot me an email and I'll describe how to get there.

Now for the odd facts -

Once the sun touches the horizon, it takes only 2 minutes for it to disappear! Don't believe me? Go watch a sunset and time it. Actually go watch a lot of them, they're all different.

2nd odd fact; While you're out there looking at the horizon, put your fingers up and hold them so that you're looking at about an inch of the horizon between them - that is equal to about 38 miles of horizon. Of course, your milage will vary - depending on your horizon. But it's still fun to think about.

OK, talk to you later,
Tony

Hey - I'm Back!

Hello fellow photographers.

I know, I know, I've been very bad about getting new posts/lessons/ideas out to you lately - Again. I'm sorry, I've just been a busy space cadet, preoccupied with a lot on my mind these last couple weeks/months.

We've also been busy trying to figure out what to do with That Photo Shoppe while looking for at least part-time work. Since the job market is pretty much non-existent, and we're much more comfortable being self-employed, we're working on creating our own jobs.

But, since I've got time on my hands now, I've made a commitment (been told to actually) to getting active again, especially after a bunch of new ideas have come up.  The latest being combining the fun of photography with my desire/dreaming of boating.  I'm just now starting to put together some concepts and adding some ideas for this blog.

The workshops have still be doing OK though. Some have been smaller than normal while others have sold-out, and everyone has a good time. We're in the middle of putting together even more. 

Keep in touch to learn about those.

Here's our workshop site: http://www.alternativefocus.blogspot.com/
Our store's site: www.thatphotoshoppe.com
My Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/masterofmadness/

Have any questions/ideas - or - if you're a boater looking for a crew member with a camera - Let me know.

Thanks, I'll be back,
Tony

Long Time No Post & That Photo Shoppe is Closing

Hello to the handful of people that have actually found me and read my stuff - When I get around to posting something.

It's been a busy & crazy spring, I've got plenty of stories started, just haven't have a chance to finish and post them. I'll get back to that soon.

But the big & Sad news of the day is the closing of That Photo Shoppe, our photography store in Anacortes, WA.

Times were pretty slow this past year, which had us moving to this current location last summer to lower our operating costs, which helped, but at the same time, the old saying "location, location, location" - or lack of, has actually made things worse. Even though we're only a 1 1/2 blocks from our old store, so many customers thought we were gone and never found us. While, at the same time we started picking up new customers, especially ones needing photo restoration and printing services, but alas, it's still not been enough to make this 'location challenged" store work as we'd like. There's just not enough foot traffic for new customers to find us and a neighbor has some large dumpsters that hide the view of us from the main street, even though we're only a 1/2 block back.

But even with all that, the momentum has started to return and our workshops have been very successful.

But then came a new challenge. We've been on a month to month lease for 10 months, and the rent's reasonable for the space we're in, but the landlord (who's actually been very good to us) is planning an extended trip to Greece and would like to have us sign a 1-year lease before he leaves. We're  not willing, able or wanting to commit to this space for that amount of time. Sorry.

We're in the middle of looking a several other retail spaces, but as of today, time has run out. So, the hard decision to "temporarily close down" until better options come along was made.

We're still in the process of buying out QuickSilver Photo Lab in Bellingham too, which is not complete nor set in stone either - Adding to the frustration, as one decision about how to deal with the store hinges on the other decisions about the other store! Make sense? Got any ideas?

So, that's the news that's news today.

Stay tuned.  For those of you who (whom?) know us, or would like to contact us, all the web-sites, phone numbers and emails for That Photo Shoppe and Alternative Focus (our workshops company) will remain active during this "time of change".

Also, Email me at tlockemm@gmail.com if you've got any questions or ideas, not only for either one of our stores, our workshops or this blog.

Thanks again,
Tony D. Locke, MM