Monday, January 15, 2007

Lunar-lit landscape

This is what I was shooting before I accidentally locked the shutter open to create the image in yesterday's post. This scene was shot by the light of the nearly-full moon. If you enlarge the image (by clicking on it) you can see a few star trails in the sky. The yellowish glow in the sky to the left is the city lights of Elgin, Illinois. I was unaware there was a tractor and plow in front of the barn until the film came back from the processor.

The exposure for this was 180 seconds at f8 using 400 ISO film. I'm getting pretty consistent results on my lunar landscapes now. The trick is still composing the shot in the dark and getting the focus to where I'm happy with it. I brought a small flashlight along with me to shine some light on the fence posts in the foreground to check the focus.

Now that I've got a handle on these types of shots, I can't wait to get out to some places I shot in daylight to see how they look under the light of the moon.

I never knew Murphy was a photographer. But check out his laws for picture taking at Ready, Aim, Click!

Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © 2007 James Jordan.

1 comment:

Hillary said...

I really like those lunar landscapes shots. It's hard to believe that its moonlight lighting up the image. It's a neat effect.