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Shine on, harvest moon
by loiswakeman @ 31/07/2007 - 14:38:53

harvest moonLast night was full moon, and I went out for a dusky walk just as it appeared above the trees like a ripe apricot. Lovely to feel the warm air rising off the road and see the bats flitting round catching insects, and watch the moon gradually shrink and pale as it sailed higher in the sky.

Meanwhile, in another field the rape harvest was still in full swing. Those who think that the countryside is quiet and clean should try standing a few feet away from the harvester, being showered in chaff!

combine harvester

(I am playing about with an old manual lens on my digital camera, so these are probably not as well-exposed as they could have been. But you get the general idea!)

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Tags: bats, combine harvester, full moon, oilseed rape,

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deleted user [Visitor]

31/07/07 @ 19:00

Is that your picture of the Moon ? We have been debating how difficult it is to take pictures of the Moon on another blog. With my digital camera it always seems to come out just as a white blob. Walking with the dog (when he was alive) at night I was always amazed at the soft hum of background noise in the fields and lanes.

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loiswakemanloiswakeman [Member]
http://lois.co.uk
02/08/07 @ 09:07

It is indeed. As I recall, it was taken at about F5.6 and 1/40 or 1/50th second.

I have never been able to use the camera meter to shoot the moon: it is always overexposed because the moon is a very small bright object in a large dark expanse (unless you have a very, very long lens; this was taken with a 70mm zoom).

As you may know, a camera meter expects the scene to be 14% grey on average; if the scene is much darker, it overexposes on auto settings, so you need to deliberately underexpose to get the moon right. (This is the converse of overexposing snowy scenes, which are brighter.)

If your camera has an EV (exposure compensation) setting, try several shots, underexposing by at least a stop and two stops, then pick the best one.

This tutorial may explain better.

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deleted user [Visitor]

02/08/07 @ 09:27

Thank you, I'll look into that.

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MrFlightyMrFlighty [Member]
31/07/07 @ 19:25

Those photos are just fine, as is the entry, being evocative of both the place and time.

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