Hello everyone, here's a little series of moorland shooting I did on Wednesday on Dartmoor using my too favourite moonlight lenses, the Contax 28mm f2 and the 14-24 on a 1DsIII.
It was bloody cold, around minus two degrees, but luckily there was no wind to chill me to the bone like there has been on many full moons earlier this year.
Come on, what are you doing sitting in doors?! Use the most of tonight, its going to be a Perigee moon, 15% bigger full moon than any other time of year thanks to its elliptical orbit.
Moor Moonlight Fun II
The image is an exposure blend of 2 seperate images and three RAW conversions to balance the image. They are focus bracketed to provide a big depth of field, shutter speeds kept low to freeze the stars which I much prefer.
First shot focused on the sky to capture the stars and distant hills, next focused on the rocks to get a sharp detail and good foreground. Finally the sky image was RAW converted with different white balances to make an accurate colour rendition as the camera gets very confused when rendering accurate white balance in the dark. - 1DsIII, Contax 28mm @ f4 30secs ISO 800
The Hunter
Using the 1DsIII and 14-24 this time the shot was looking towards Orion, placed over the main tor complex. Same procedure as shot one - 1DsIII N14-24 @ 24mm f4 30secs
Banana Republic II
This is a favourite evening shot, if you have a look on my vertical landscapes gallery at http://www.davidclapp.co.uk you can see the same shot, same lens. Again focus bracketed. 1DsIII, Contax 28mm @ f4 30secs ISO 800
Home Safe
Stopped on the way back to photograph this wonderful set of cottages, black ice all over the road courtesy of the little brook. Many of the bends in the road would throw the back end of the car out whilst taking corners at 15mph, it was such a laugh, like a low speed rally. A straight shot this time - 1DsIII, Contax 28mm @ f4 30secs ISO 800
Moon Buggy
And finally here it is, the trusty moon buggy, a 1960 Morris Minor my main photomobile. I did it up from a complete wreck, I have nearly sold it again and again, but it has a lot of character and character goes a long way in my book. Again a focus bracketed shot to keep everything pin sharp. 1DsIII, Contax 28mm @ f4 30secs ISO 800
Lovely work Dave. It seems you mentioned every setting you used but not the ISO setting you used...Surely these must have been high ISO shots because 30secs at f4 would give a pretty low exposure at low ISO...?
Lovely work Dave. It seems you mentioned every setting you used but not the ISO setting you used...Surely these must have been high ISO shots because 30secs at f4 would give a pretty low exposure at low ISO...?
Fantastic shots David, love the tors, love the car, love the technique. I was driving back at 2am from photographing a wedding on Saturday just south of Salisbury, and dropping 4 wedding guests at their B&B when I went round a corner in the lane at a reasonable pace and all four wheels went. The car ended up wedged sideways with front and back wedged up against the banks and hedges on each side. When we got out of the car, a couple of us nearly slipped over on the road. Terrible black ice. Luckily we and the car were not damaged but it was pretty scary doing a 4-wheel pirouette in the blackness. A minute later we saw lights coming around the bend and were worried that the car would crash into us as we stood about wondering what to do. It stopped, and reversed away into the night, offering us no help. New Britain.
Your so lucky to live somewhere so picturesque Dave...So much better than the concrete jungle round here. Was that Tor man-made BTW?...Or a natural formation?
Blimey Brainac, thats a lot worse than the ice I encountered. The car must have taken some work to get out of that situation. 'New Britain' - how very true. Glad your in one piece. I could barely stand up when taking the cottage photo!
David, how did you focus for the stars?
I mean, there's no sense in setting it behind hyperfocal distance.
I had that problem when shooting at new moon - focusing is harder then. Does the AF-confirm-chip still works fine in that low-light?
New moon is a different intention than you showed in that thread: long traces of stars throught the landscape; the entire image is more abtract than in your examples.
The stars are just focused at infinity. The lens is set for infinity and click, there you have it. The Contax 28mm f2 doesnt focus past infinity like AF Canon does. They are super lenses for the job. The lens has some el-cheapo over sized 1.54mm thick adapter that I got from my friends box of spares, its has no AF confirm, and its not necessary anway. The whole lens is tested inside out hyperfocally, I just remember the settings in my head.
Yes at a new moon the sky takes on a a completely different look, I would love to do some mountain shots in those conditions.
....excellent work...I had a little "Morris" like the one in your shot when I was in High School...1964....such cool cars...too bad you can't find 'em in the USA too often.
Its a real shame as I can get all the parts for them here in the UK literally off the shelf, its not surprising though. India is the place to get them, I think you can still buy them brand new.
