Posted by Sean Bagshaw on August 28, 2007 at 6:04 PM
Howdy PNW folks. I have been busy with assignment shooting this summer and have not had much new in the world of nature photography to share. I have been keeping up with all of your summer photo adventures and I'm impressed and envious. You guys up north are prolific, passionate and talented.
I did stay up all night last night to photograph the lunar eclipse. This shot is a composite I put together in Photoshop from a series of images taken at 10 minute intervals between 1:30 and 5:30 this morning. I have also posted a magnified moon view version in the Photo Art forum if you are interested in seeing the eclipse more closely.
Canon EOS 5D, 400mm f/5.6 L lens, carbon tripod, mirror lock. Exposures ranged from 1/400 of a second at f/5.6 and ISO 100 to 1 second at f/5.6 and ISO 640 depending on how much of the moon was eclipsed. The backdrop is a single shot taken right before dawn.
The red color of the fully eclipsed moon is caused by global cloud cover and airborne particulates difracting and refracting indirect light on its way to and from the moon. Eclipsed moons can vary from light orange to brick red to dark brown depending on the conditions.
Despite being THE topic of conversation among eclipse watchers, Mars did not appear in the sky as large as the moon as many people believed it would. This urban legend started in 2003 when Earth passed Mars at a distance of around 35 million miles, close enough for it to look as large as the moon THROUGH A SMALL TELESCOPE! Since then emails touting the Mars hoax have circulated cyberspace every summer and every year millions of people get fished in. Mars, being roughly the size of the moon, would have to be nearly as close to appear as large. This would require that either Mars or Earth travel tens of millions of miles out of its orbit, creating all kinds of havoc in the solar system, an event that would surely get nearly as much news coverage as Paris Hilton's prison diary. Hopefully we wouldn't have to learn of such an event via a chain email.
Posted by Hans Hibbard on August 28, 2007 at 6:08 PM
Whoa! I didn't expect that. Really cool Sean. This is great. Thanks for sharing it. Feel free to clone out those lights.
Posted by Ned Fenimore on August 28, 2007 at 6:23 PM
All I can say Sean is that I would like a huge print of this to study firsthand.. this is spectacular!!
Posted by Zack Schnepf on August 28, 2007 at 6:41 PM
VERY VERY COOL ! I thought about getting up for it, but 12 Hrs babysitting two grand kids did me in.
Posted by Curtis Knight on August 28, 2007 at 8:02 PM
Now that's worth staying up all night for... but I know I'd never make it :(
Hey Sean, I saw your post in PA, and I like this much much better.
Posted by John Lehmkuhl on August 28, 2007 at 8:07 PM
Sean, this is an awesome composite. Truly one that you could/should find a way to publish in a magazine. Stunning and I wish I had a 400mm lens. My 70-200 f4L with 1.4x teleconverter was not enough for me !
Posted by Adrian Klein on August 28, 2007 at 8:38 PM
Simply awesome Sean. I got up and took a couple ok images but nothing as unique and cool as this. Good work!
Posted by Tom Kloster on August 29, 2007 at 12:57 AM
Really, really cool, Sean! Excellent as is, but poster-worthy (in my mind, anyway) if you were to delete the light trails on the ground. Are you going to reveal just how you assembled this in Photoshop..?
Tom
Posted by David Schoen on August 29, 2007 at 10:59 AM
great work!!! astronomically amazing...
Posted by Eric Hahl on August 29, 2007 at 12:35 PM
Posted by Sean Bagshaw on August 29, 2007 at 3:26 PM
Thanks for the feedback folks.
I'm reposting it with the lights cloned out, per your suggestions.
Tom, my photoshop technique wast to select and move each moon phase image onto a black background as separate layers and then size and arrange them in the arc. Then I flattened the image and moved it as a layer on top of the background image of hills and dawn light. Then I masked in the landscape at the bottom and faded to black towards the top of the image. The background image was taken the same morning looking southeast while the actual eclipse happened in the southwest to the right of the view in this photo.
Curtis, the nob is actually Pilot Rock on the Siskiyou Summit Pass and the mountain is Mt. Shasta. I live in the hills south of Ashland right near the CA border. To get the shot I drove up the Mt. Ashland access road about six miles from my house.
I have a couple of questions for the forum.
First, I'd like to create an even more dramatic interpretation of the event, so I'm thinking of going up to Crater Lake to shoot a pre-dawn shot with the specific purpose of placing the eclipse arc in the sky. Since the photo is already a composite I figure why not take it all the way. I'd be interested to hear if you think it is worth it, or is the image strong enough as is.
Second, I'd like to post this image in one of the main forums. Even though this is a composite do you think it qualifies for ESS since there really isn't any other way to get this photo? It could be done with multiple exposures in a film camera, but the effect would be the same and it would still be a composite. If the consensus is that ESS is a no go then I'll post it in the Photo Art forum.
Posted by Tom Kloster on August 29, 2007 at 11:39 PM
Beautiful repost, Sean - and a really cool technique for assembling this! I don't see any reason why you shouldn't try the Crater Lake composite, provided that you identify it as one. My own boundary on that sort of thing is whether the created scene "could" have happened in reality. For me, capturing a particular feeling that best interprets the landscape is even more important, and establishes the the rationale for a composite image. Your idea of using Crater Lake is a perfect example - look forward to seeing that!
The part that really works in this composition is the relationship of the moon arc to Pilot Rock and the bright sky behind it - both in shape and color. So to that extent, Crater Lake offers some interesting options for doing more of the same.
Discussion
16 repliesI did stay up all night last night to photograph the lunar eclipse. This shot is a composite I put together in Photoshop from a series of images taken at 10 minute intervals between 1:30 and 5:30 this morning. I have also posted a magnified moon view version in the Photo Art forum if you are interested in seeing the eclipse more closely.
Canon EOS 5D, 400mm f/5.6 L lens, carbon tripod, mirror lock. Exposures ranged from 1/400 of a second at f/5.6 and ISO 100 to 1 second at f/5.6 and ISO 640 depending on how much of the moon was eclipsed. The backdrop is a single shot taken right before dawn.
The red color of the fully eclipsed moon is caused by global cloud cover and airborne particulates difracting and refracting indirect light on its way to and from the moon. Eclipsed moons can vary from light orange to brick red to dark brown depending on the conditions.
Despite being THE topic of conversation among eclipse watchers, Mars did not appear in the sky as large as the moon as many people believed it would. This urban legend started in 2003 when Earth passed Mars at a distance of around 35 million miles, close enough for it to look as large as the moon THROUGH A SMALL TELESCOPE! Since then emails touting the Mars hoax have circulated cyberspace every summer and every year millions of people get fished in. Mars, being roughly the size of the moon, would have to be nearly as close to appear as large. This would require that either Mars or Earth travel tens of millions of miles out of its orbit, creating all kinds of havoc in the solar system, an event that would surely get nearly as much news coverage as Paris Hilton's prison diary. Hopefully we wouldn't have to learn of such an event via a chain email.
Hey Sean, I saw your post in PA, and I like this much much better.
Tom
- pradeep
I'm reposting it with the lights cloned out, per your suggestions.
Tom, my photoshop technique wast to select and move each moon phase image onto a black background as separate layers and then size and arrange them in the arc. Then I flattened the image and moved it as a layer on top of the background image of hills and dawn light. Then I masked in the landscape at the bottom and faded to black towards the top of the image. The background image was taken the same morning looking southeast while the actual eclipse happened in the southwest to the right of the view in this photo.
Curtis, the nob is actually Pilot Rock on the Siskiyou Summit Pass and the mountain is Mt. Shasta. I live in the hills south of Ashland right near the CA border. To get the shot I drove up the Mt. Ashland access road about six miles from my house.
I have a couple of questions for the forum.
First, I'd like to create an even more dramatic interpretation of the event, so I'm thinking of going up to Crater Lake to shoot a pre-dawn shot with the specific purpose of placing the eclipse arc in the sky. Since the photo is already a composite I figure why not take it all the way. I'd be interested to hear if you think it is worth it, or is the image strong enough as is.
Second, I'd like to post this image in one of the main forums. Even though this is a composite do you think it qualifies for ESS since there really isn't any other way to get this photo? It could be done with multiple exposures in a film camera, but the effect would be the same and it would still be a composite. If the consensus is that ESS is a no go then I'll post it in the Photo Art forum.
The part that really works in this composition is the relationship of the moon arc to Pilot Rock and the bright sky behind it - both in shape and color. So to that extent, Crater Lake offers some interesting options for doing more of the same.
Tom