Photo: "Illuminate to Recreate"

Mono Lake, California

Until last weekend, it had been a while since I'd been out shooting under the full moon. A few years ago, I was able to get out nearly every month and shoot at least one moon night, but life seems to get in the way lately. I guess it's time to start figuring out how to make that happen again. 

(This image was a 9 minute exposure taken at ISO 100 and f/16.)

 

Photo: "Large Trees In A Tiny World"

​This ranch was founded by an Italian settler and dates back to the late 1800's. The original buildings included a small six room house and a single horse barn. In the early 1900's, the house was expanded to fourteen rooms, the barn was also expanded and a blacksmith shop was constructed. It eventually became the one of the largest ranch in the areal in terms of livestock and produce. 

The owner and founder died in 1933 and by the 1940's most of the ancestors had left. The ranch now belongs to the Forest Service. 

Photo: "Stirred, Not Shaken"

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Lake Tahoe, California

This was taken back in January on the way home after spending a Saturday in the Eastern Sierras with +Jeff Sullivan and +Lori Hibbett. On Sunday, +Tran Mai began the trek home and stopped in Tahoe for snowshoeing and  sunset. We didn't get great color, but it was a great opportunity to slap on the Big Stopper and get a long exposure. 

Night Photography Test Shots (Eastern Sierra Mine)

When I shoot at night, I shoot a series of "test shots" to check exposure and make sure my composition is right. This means that I crank my ISO up to 1600 or 3200 and take a shot for between 5-20 seconds, depending on the light, and then multiply out my exposure as I drop it down to an ISO I prefer to shoot at. (Example: If my test shot is ISO 1600 @ 10 seconds, and I'm happy with the exposure, I could shoot it at those settings, or try: ISO 800 @ 20 seconds, ISO 400 @ 40 seconds, ISO 200 @ 80 seconds or ISO 100 @ 160 seconds.)

On this particular night, I shot this test shot at ISO 1600 and was pretty happy with the exposure, so I dropped the ISO down to 200 and shot a 60 second exposure.

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(6 seconds. f/8. ISO 1600.) 

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(60 seconds. f/8. ISO 200.) 

In the end, I actually liked the test shot better, because in the 60 second image, the clouds were moving quickly, which caused a lot of motion blur in the clouds. 

I used to delete most of my test shots when I shot with the 5DMkI because the noise at 800 or 1600 was so awful, I wouldn't share the images online, much less print them. Now with the 5DMkIII, I keep all test shots, especially if they're shot at 1600. 

Next step, do some test prints at night of ISO 1600 and see how they print at various sizes.