Center of the Moon

The other night the wind was quick and the sky full of clouds, so I did a bit of an experiment with a long exposure and the moon. Not possessing a neural density filter, evening time (at somewhat respectable hours) is the only time I can do long exposures at if my pictures aren’t meant to turn out all white. Even so, striking the right balance between exposure compensation, ISO, shutter speed, and aperture was quite the challenge, with raising the shutter speed (through exposure compensation) producng only a white blob for a moon (which was not what I wanted), surrounded by smoky, blurred clouds (which was what I wanted). Going the complete other direction, with a low shutter speed, merely ended up with a black sky and a lone white dot indicating our grey satellite. Couple that with the fact the edges of trees kept intruding on the photograph, and impending clear skies which would destroy the premise of the photograph all together, and you have quite a conundrum, for which I present what was, in the end, my best compromise. What do you think of the result of this test? Any suggestions? Tell me in the comments!

Advertisement