Bosque Moonset

Gallery: Man & NaturePosted January 8, 2010385 views10 comments

From the Bosque Del Apache on News Years Day. As you may recall there was a "Blue Moon" on the 31st that set on the 1st.

This image is actually a composite of 9 images. The first 8 are just an HDR of the scene captured with my 5D using a 28-135 at 38mm. The Moon is the 9th image captured with my 50D using a 500mm lens.
The moon was really in the scene in the location I've placed it in this image. Capturing the images at 38mm, the moon looked much smaller than in real life, hence my desire to place the bigger moon into the image. I resized it down to match my memory of what the scene really looked like. The birds hunkered down in the image are Snow Geese and Sandhill Cranes

If this is too much tinkering to fit in this gallery, my apologies and the moderator should feel free to move it to Photo Art.

Larger image included

Comments

10 comments

Comment posted by Ron Pullen on January 8, 2010 at 1:03 PM

The moon makes this image for me. The horizontal patterns work well also..... Ron

Registered on December 18, 2005, 74 Posts, 1413 Comments

Comment posted by Daniel Cartamil on January 8, 2010 at 1:04 PM

Great shot that looks a lot better viewed large size, love those birds! In my opinion, the moon looks pretty unnatural blown up to this size, however; it would appeal a lot more to me at half the size you have here...

Registered on November 15, 2007, 50 Posts, 601 Comments

Comment posted by Luke Ormand on January 8, 2010 at 4:15 PM

Amazing photo - I wasn't even aware of the birds (THE 2 species of Bosque) until I read your description.

In regards to the moon, it's important for the image, BUT it doens't work as composed. The moon is too large and too low to be that grey (especially with that color sky). When there is a full moon, it rises as the sunsets, and as such the moon will look HUGE and have a big orange glow to it, so the color and scaling of this look totally off and unnatural to me unfortunately.

- Luke

Registered on February 4, 2009, 1093 Posts, 7035 Comments

Comment posted by Keith Bauer on January 8, 2010 at 4:23 PM

Hi Luke: Thanks for your comment. While in general I would agree with your comments regarding the color of the moon, in this case it is precisely the color of the moon as it was in the sky because I took the moon picture about a minute or so after I took the rest of the images. You said that when there is a full moon, it rises as the sunsets. This is a moonset, not a moon rise. The moon was setting about 15-20 minutes before the sun rose.
I think what's happening is the HDR actually has a color shift that may be causing the visual confusion. Guess I could artificially change the hue of the moon but that isn't what I was after. Thx again for your insight.

Registered on November 20, 2003, 458 Posts, 4836 Comments

Comment posted by Robert Costall on January 8, 2010 at 4:47 PM

I like this image, especially the large view. I recognized the white band as birds and I like the moon as is - Bob

Registered on April 9, 2009, 13 Posts, 67 Comments

Comment posted by Ron McCombe on January 8, 2010 at 6:37 PM

hey Keith

The moon works for me, I like t whole composition, I think its a really good image

Ron

Registered on November 16, 2009, 190 Posts, 207 Comments

Comment posted by Sam Rua on January 9, 2010 at 9:13 PM

Nice capture, Keith. The Moon does look a bit unnatural, not by the size (which should be close to accurate), but by the color. The hue is going to change when you shoot the Moon at longer focal lengths. If you tried shooting at 38mm for the right exposure of the Moon you can easily see what I am talking about --- it just won't look like it appears in the merged image above. Aside from that technical nit from an admitted astronomy geek this is a great capture that is well seen.

Registered on September 9, 2006, 130 Posts, 2281 Comments

Comment posted by Basil Greber on January 10, 2010 at 5:17 AM

I think this is a very good shot, but I'd like to see a version without the post-hoc inserted moon.

Registered on November 8, 2005, 219 Posts, 1340 Comments

Comment posted by Kirk Greene on January 10, 2010 at 9:43 AM

Really nice job with the comp & the stitch. I don't think it was necessary to make the moon this large. It would have been fine 1/2 this size IMO. The color of the moon looks a little off and would be worth spending a little time correcting.

Registered on May 12, 2004, 191 Posts, 1578 Comments

Comment posted by Mark Pelton on January 10, 2010 at 10:20 PM

It works for me, beautiful image.

Registered on November 25, 2003, 380 Posts, 4647 Comments