Point Montara Beach Kit Lens Fun

This past weekend was annoyingly hot so on Sunday I made my way out to the Half Moon Bay area for some much needed ocean breeze relief. After driving up and down the coast from HMB to Pacifica and back looking for a new spot to relax and take pictures at I decided to head to my favorite spot, Point Montara Lighthouse. I only wish I had done so at first because unlike every other beach spot which was crowded with parking and people this spot was nearly empty. As I made my way down to the beach area it was even more empty, in fact I was the only person there for the first 15 minutes or so. I easily had 100+ feet of beach area all to myself until two other people wandered down and hung out one of the hidden nooks by the mini waterfall/stream that flows into the ocean. And later a group of about a dozen people came down and had a picnic gathering but they stayed near the stream area as well so the entire 3 hours that I was there I had 90% of the beach to myself :)

I busted out my T2i with its less than stellar kit lens attached and committed to making the best of the situation.


I thought this was an interesting rock formation at the far end of the beach.


So I tried to get a lower angle of it and the waves and was a little TOO successful. See the foamy wave approaching on the left? Fractions of a second after I took this shot it soaked my pants and undies thoroughly with very cold water and motivated me to find some other scenery.


There was some cool sea life stuck to the rocks and I tried to get the best low DOF super bookah shot I could with the kit lens.


Then I came across some action, this little sea roach was crawling through the crevices until it saw me and tried to blend in.


I also played a game of "chicken" with the waves VS my camera, thankfully I have very quick reflexes and have done this several times before with other gear. Being able to judge when a foamy surge is going to make it to you is critical. I would have been less worried if this were a 7D with weather proofed and filter sealed lens.


After some more hunting for interesting shots I found this "critter" and he became my buddy/prop for a while.


I even posed him with some bits of sea vegetation with a scenic ocean backdrop. Until that scenic backdrop devoured my buddy/prop and nearly my camera.


Here is the last clip I got before ol'Diny was swept out to sea...

Lacking a prop I gave up taking pictures for a while and just sat back and enjoyed the sun and still nearly empty beach. I also at this point realized that I had left my extra batterys and memory cards at home and was running low on the one I had with me.


After a bit of rest I found a challenge in this composition, trying to get just the closest flower to be in focus. The sky was ultra blue at this angle.


And here is a shot of the "secret garden" at this beach. Even though I've been to this beach several times before this was the first for me getting to this area thanks to the receding tide. I still have yet to visit this area at super low tide since that usually seems to happen early in the morning.

In all it was a fun day and well worth the hour I spent in bumper to bumper traffic on the 92.

i <3 Half Moon Bay

Welcome and Good Night STRAWBERRY moon...

I am almost certain that crescent moons are my favorite moons to capture. Not only for the technical challenge but fun of welcoming or bidding adieu to the moon during its monthly phase cycle. In this case I am saying hello to a 42 hour old moon. Someday I'll actually capture a moon less than 24 hours old but that will take some more skills and equipment upgrades. But for now I am pretty sure that this is my youngest capture with the 1000mm lens. I usually wait until after the 2nd day to use my 1000mm lens but I knew there was zero cloud cover this day so I started out with my biggest lens and then moved back to my Bigma as it got closer to the horizon.



In the above shot the smear at the bottom of the moon is a plane passing by. I saw it coming about 5 seconds before it crossed and realized I wouldn't have time or favorable light conditions with my super slow 1000mm lens to get a clear shot of the plane AND the moon so I just went with this slow shutter smeary look. This is part of the fun shooting the moon nearly everyday, mastering the timing to capture moments that last fractions of a second. And this is with shutter lock on so I have to time to raise AND release just right.



Here is the moon less magnified, after switching to the Bigma (Sigma 50-500mm). This is a more accurate view of how the moon looked, the sky wasn't black yet but there was little to no color left in the sky. I could just make out the slightest hint of earthshine with my naked eye so I adjusted exposure and ISO settings to capture more light as you can see here...



and here as the moon slips out of view...

GoodMorning and GoodBye FLOWER moon...

This morning the weather was kind to me. Not only did I manage to fall asleep early enough last night to be able to wake up at 4am, but the clouds didn't pull their "we're gonna make a clear sky turn overcast in 2 hours" routine like it has from 2-5am the past few days. I hesitated to get out of bed and put pants on to check if the moon would be visible but I am really glad that I did because today was the last day to catch a glimpse of this FLOWER moon. I'll explain more in a bit.



This is what I saw as went out to search for the moon. A crisp unshrouded waning crescent moon that had just risen above the cloud layer hovering above the Mt. Hamilton range to the east of me. I quickly ran back inside to grab my gear and spent the next hour enjoying my gift from the weather.



Here is a shot that captures the not quite black, not quite blue murky color that is dawn. I am almost certain that waning crescents at dawn are my FAVORITE kind of moon image to capture since they are so rare. And by rare I mean the combined factors of:
a) me being able to get up/stay up for them
b) cloud cover cooperating
c) me being able to get up/stay up and not give into warm bed syndrome



And here is the moon after a lens change from my 1000mm setup to my 50-500mm Bigma. There is not a hint of black in the sky anymore as dawn takes over even though the sun is still a half hour away from crossing the horizon.



20 minutes later the moon struggles to stay visible with the sun hot on it's trail. Can you find it in the upper right sector of the image? You might need to click the image for a full sized view, it is there I promise :)



Forget the fact that the sun will make the moon invisible to the naked eye soon, these clouds are about to overtake it and end my morning of moon shots. I can't complain though since I was about to run out of space on all of my memory cards, everything worked out just right. Again I would like to offer thanks to the cloud gods for giving me at least one morning this week with some waning crescent beauty.

Checking my local lunar data tables I can even see that this morning was the absolute last chance I would get to see the moon in this May "FLOWER" phase. Tomorrow morning the moon won't rise until 4:50am PST, and with the mountains in the way that means I wouldn't see it until about 5:10am and that is assuming absolute zero cloud cover. On top of the fact that dawn will have begun breaking about 5am making it nearly impossible to see the sliver thin moon with the sun hot on its tail. I think that even if there were no clouds tomorrow morning I would have about 10-15 minutes tops to capture the moon before it fades into the morning sky so I'm extremely pleased that I got the clear shots from this morning.

The Bakers Dozen Full Moon Collage

This is a project that I've been working on for many months now, longer than even getting my site up and running. I worked all of 2009 to capture the images needed for this and now will share with you all. I present my "Full Moons of 2009" collage in miniature form.

Using my 1000mm lens and 10 megapixel XTi, I was able to capture all 13 full moons of last year. There were 13 because of the BLUE MOON on New Year's Eve and it was truly special. The version I present for sale here is actually a smaller than my original creation which is a 40"x60" 300DPI master that I intend to print at 48"x72" or 4foot by 6foot, as soon as I can find a print house capable of handling such a monster size print. But for now I present to you my lunar collage which will show that while full moons may not have the awesome crater and surface detail you see during other phases, they are still magnificent, and very different from each other.

I have chosen to include text below each moon to let you know what you are looking at, as well as to provide a reference for how the moon changes size from month to month, throughout the year. Each row of text is exactly the same distance below the center line of each row of moons. If you study the center column of moon images you can see how the moon edge is closer and farther and then closer to the line of text. Looking at the difference between the WOLF moon and STURGEON moon and then the BLUE moon you can see that it really does changes size. Or maybe I should restate that, the moon doesn't change size, but it does move closer and further from the earth throughout the year, which makes the apparent size to us change here on the surface of mother Earth. I actually never really believed it was visible until I made this collage.

I almost didn't get all the images needed to create this print. As you can see the PINK full moon is shrouded in a cloudy haze. Even though the full moon is usually bright enough to shine through any cloud cover, the skies were nearly overcast this night. It took a lot of time and patience and repeated journeys outside with camera and tripod before I could catch this with enough detail.

I was really nervous about how this would look in final print form. I've attended a few online classes and webinars about color management of photos and prints and was worried that the cloudy haze would show nasty artifacts. But I am extremely pleased to report that everything looks great in the 24"x36" print I just received from BayPhoto this afternoon. Now I just need to work on finding a place that can print this at 48"x72" and after that an appropriate place to hang it :)

I have included two versions in my gallery as noted by the titles under the main image on the right. One has BRIGHT text which stands out more, while the other has FADED text which basically disappears until you get within 2 feet or so of it. Ok, this post is long enough, but I'll gladly answer any questions you have, and now need to start working on my blog entries for each month of moon pics for 2009.

Cloudy Defeat

Oh man, I purposely stayed up late to try and catch the moon before sunrise. I whiled away the time playing some solo firefight in Halo, I went out an hour after moonrise with tripod and Bigma mounted on my T2i and I saw the moon, with what I thought was an opportunity to catch it with the 1000mm lens instead. So I ran back inside and did a remarkably quick lens change, got back outside and tripod all set up and the moon slid behind a thick layer of clouds. DAMN! If I had only not been greedy and just done some 500mm shots I could have laid claim to another day in a row of shots. I don't think I'll get a chance again while it's dark, this cloud cover is moving south and when I went up front to see what the area to the north was like it was a giant wall of white, well orange which is the color clouds appear with San Jose light pollution. BAH! So goes the game of chance when trying to follow the moon. Now I really wish I had just gone to bed. I feel amped like I want to try and wait for a hole in the clouds but really, I should just get some sleep and continue my lunarcy in the morning. Maybe I can grab a cat nap and catch it just before dawn. Yeah right...

Welcome to LUNARPHILE!

This is the journal of a man obsessed with taking pictures of the moon since August 18. 2007 in preparation for the total lunar eclipse of August 27, 2007. I originally thought that I would take a few decent shots of the moon every now and then after loosing interest in using my newly acquired DSLR like I have so many other hobbies. With over 60,000 moon images in my catalog I can say that I have definitely not lost interest in shooting the moon as often as I can. Now I'm starting the long process of sharing the moments I've captured over the past 2 years and will continue for a long time into the future.

But first you are probably asking "What is a LUNARPHILE?"

LUNAR comes from the Latin lunaris, or luna, referring to the moon

PHILE in its adjective form comes from the Latin -philos meaning "lover"

Together LUNARPHILE is the perfect word for "moon lovers" around the world, regardless of sex, race, religion, favorite sports team, political party, or camera manufacturer preference. I am looking to connect with other LUNARPHILES around the world to provide high quality moon imagery for your living spaces and visual pleasure. The same way that random strangers I meet on the street while shooting the moon will talk to me about their lunar thoughts, I hope to connect with people from all corners of the globe to share my growing collection with.

I intend to release a months worth of lunar content from my archive every week for the rest of the year. While it is impossible to shoot the moon every day due to weather conditions, work and social commitments, and sleep schedules, I do try to capture a wide range of phases every lunar cycle in a varying range of sky conditions from dusk till dawn and every hour inbetween. From waxing gibbous moons in the afternoon sky, to full moons lighting up the night, to waning crescents rising minutes before the sun, I hope to show the changing beauty of the moon in the earth sky, day and night.

With that said, lets get on to the first month of moon images from 2009 in my next entry!