WC446 Sanibel Lighthouse
by Buck Ward
January 2010 - Just after the winter solstice the crescent moon precedes the sun near it's closest approach to the lighthouse from this particular vantage. I had planned this shot for a couple of months beforehand and went there before going to work in the morning.
Canon 1D3, 300mm f2.8
ISO 2oo, f4, 5 seconds
Evaluative metering, Av, +1.76
I had to balance the length of the exposure to minimize the movement of the moon and maximize the number of blinks of the light. The dark side of the moon is often visible in photos of the crescent moon, even though it's not visible to the eye.
Comments
17 commentsI Love Sanibel/Ding Darling - how lucky you are to be close!Sandy r
István
Mauro
To correct your misconceptions, there is no trickery here. This is not a toy lighthouse in front of a picture of the moon. It is one photo, not a composite. The picture was shot from a little more than 2 kilometers away from the lighthouse on the opposite side from the Gulf of Mexico. When the photo was made, on January 13, 2010, at 06:14 EST the moon was at an azimuth of about 119 degrees, 29 degrees south of due east. No filters were used, and there was no fancy post-processing.
For the sake of comparison, I've attached a similar photo made in January of 2009, with the same lens from the same location.
I can really tell you put a lot of planning into this shot. This, certainly was not a surprise, bonus shot that you happened to notice one night.