a manual to moonlight

August 26, 2010 candacemorris 4 Comments

The past few nights, the moon has been unreal.  In the time I've had my DSLR, I've managed just about every setting except for FULLY MANUAL (focus, setting, etc).  I have been quite frustrated in the education process, to be honest, and gave up for a bit...shooting instead about 80% manual.  But the moonlight begged, completely pleaded, to be caught.  Here's my process...sparing the technical jargon...mainly because I am still unsure what exactly I did.


Here are my subjects..mini calas and one lone dahlia.
The kitchen light is on here so I can actually see my subjects.  In the complete dark, the screen from the camera blinds me (even though there is a sensor that darkens it when I am looking through the view finder)




Here the settings were picking up on the ambient light from the dining room, but still wasn't what I wanted.




Here I was happier with the exposure, but not the focus.




An improvement in both exposure and steady focusing.



This one was a bit too dark


But this...this one was what I was trying to capture...how the moonlight back-lit the glass in such a magical way.



A portrait version.



I was so happy to have learned something so momentus, and that night in bed looked through my pictures with intruige.  As soon as I turned off the light to go to bed, I noticed how stunning my curtians were also grabbing the moonlight.  I had to get my camera again and start the whole process over.  I have about 6 failed shots of the one above, but finally captured it in the end.


p.s. Did I mention that lots of wine helped these events come about?  If I were too sober, I would have been impatient with the process and given up long since.  

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4 comments:

UmberDove said...

WE are constantly learning. I'm proud of you miss.

Taddyporter said...

loving that moonlit glass!!! I keep taking my manual on trips but somehow never get to it(hello good book instead)...thank you for the inspiration dear Candace.

Diana said...

For some reason my DSLR i get lazy over, but my analogue SLR, i can't ever taint with automatic settings. With every photo taken, it's a lesson learned.

You romance me.