Full Moon Risin'

Given that yesterday's full moon was said to be the largest and brightest of 2009 (and given a favorable weather forecast), Tami and I signed up for Purgatory's moonlight snowshoe tour. For a fee you get a lift ride to the top from where you slowly make your way down, with a stop at the Powderhouse mid-mountain lunch area for wine and cheese. It was a really cool experience snowshoeing in the moonlight and very relaxing to have the slopes to ourselves (along with the other 15 or so who signed up).

Photographically, we were treated to a great sunset which I captured in this SUNSET PANO. My luck in capturing the moonrise was less successful as once it finally cleared the Twilight Peaks (shown above), it was already too bright to be captured with detail. Nonetheless, it was a spectacular sight.

A short while later, the moon passed through some of the thin, high clouds and gave off a little moonbow. Unfortunately, there weren't many compositional choices at the time it occured, but the above shot gives you an idea of what it looked like.

They're all outstanding, Guy! Congrats to you for creating unique and beautiful views of a Colorado winter. IMHO, #1 and the pano - which is really amazing - both look over-sharpened to my eye.

What? You did not tell me about this??? Wow that must have been a sweet snowshoe! #1 is really nice with the soft pinks and blues in the sky. #2 well, moon bows always work for me .
John

Awesome landscape, beautiful images. The moon is a bit much though. Would an HDR work in these extreme exposure conditions?

That's a SUPER sunset pano, Guy!

Glad you had better luck than we did. A group of us were out on a snowshoe yesterday. With a forecast of partly cloudy skies, we had great expectations for sunset and a full moon hike back. Let me say it's tough making a living as a weather forecaster in Colorado.

Wow...love the sunset pano., Guy!
Sharpening looks fine to me there.

Glad I clicked on the 'Original' link to see it in its full glory.
Perhaps you can redo the link above to go there instead.

Handheld, or did you lug along a mono/tripod?

Thanks everyone and thanks for reminding me about that original link, John. Made that change. I "lugged" that heavy Feisol tripod of yours up with me! Hardly even noticed the weight (and placed an order for my very own today).

Jim C, it may have been possible to try something in the HDR realm (not sure if the movement of the moon would've caused alignment issues or not with Photomatix), but while I was out shooting everyone else was drinking the wine! I had to hurry back to get a couple of glasses for myself before it was all gone.

Wow! I really like the pano and #1. I see what Dave means about the oversharpening, but I'm not sure it's oversharpening. Maybe compression? Either way, those are two great images.

...while I was out shooting everyone else was drinking the wine! I had to hurry back to get a couple of glasses for myself before it was all gone.

Glad to see you have your priorities straight!
Sounds like you both had a wonderful time up there.

Guy your Pano gallery is terriffic!

I love your pano shot, that is awesome

That pano is awesome! The moonrise photos are cool, too. That snowshoe trip sounds like a lot of fun.

I agree about the pano, nice! The moon shots are slightly oversharpened, but pretty nonetheless.

Funny how so many commented about oversharpening...especially when I didn't apply any sharpening on either of the moon shots and only painted some in on the areas below the tree line on the pano. I also have capture sharpening turned off in Lightroom so the raws are unsharpened as well. Then I remembered that a little while ago I changed my default resampling setting to bicubic sharpen. At the time, I thought it did a great job for the images I was resizing for web. I did a little more research and now see that it can have an adverse affect on certain types of images. A little experiment quickly showed that it's the cause of the slightly oversharpened look (especially on the pano). Time to go back to basic bicubic for my web resizing!

Great shots Guy! I love that pano, but the slopeside shots are pretty cool too! Sounds like you had a great night!