Feb 11thNow I know . . .

why my shot didn’t work. I might have avoided this very simple mistake if I had been able to read G. Dan Mitchell’s post on Monday instead of today, but that just gives me another excuse to go out and try again. (A real burden, I know).

So what happened?  Well, I had been dragging my husband all around the North Coast of Ohio all day looking for likely places to hang out and do some serious photography as the weather warms up, and towards the end of the day, in hopes of finding a spot to catch both the setting sun and the rising full moon about a half hour later, we finally arrived at a place that looked good for also trying out the digital view camera.  So I got that all set up, and did a 6-shot sunset view (I see one corner where I must have messed up the focus a little when I shifted the standard.). 

Unfortunately, the eastern view was completely clouded over, so we started to head south, stopped for coffee, and by the time we arrived at a reservoir where I knew we wouldn’t have any trouble being after dark, I set up to try the same thing with the now mostly clear full moon and its reflection over the mostly frozen lake. The shot of the moon itself was about as perfect as I think I can do. But I made exactly the mistake that Dan talks about in his post.

Rely on your histogram to check exposure – not on how the shot looks in the display. If the shot looks like what you see at night, it most cases it will be way underexposed – and, as a result, you’ll have a very noise image and you may end up with artifacts like banding. Instead, use an exposure that produces a balanced histogram curve – or, “expose to the right” as many of us like to say.

I looked at the LCD screen to check the rest of the shots in the series. I didn’t look at the histogram. The rest of the shots were totally useless. On the other hand, I did get to see a little bit more about how well my Nikon lens, Bender 4×5, and Canon XT play together, which is pretty nice. And I also got to experience what it’s like to lug a surveyor’s tripod up about 50 steps and back down again. I’m sure glad I don’t smoke anymore!!

Compare that one with a similar full moon shot at the same location a few years ago taken with a Sigma 28-80 zoom at 68 mm.

So far I’ve been very pleased with the time that I’ve invested into the Bender kit. Now I wish I would have done it sooner.

The day was also nice for just strolling around and getting a few snaps. I did get to see another bald eagle not too far from the place where I saw a juvenile in September 2007.

A view of the marsh . . .

And another trail at another marsh . . .