Catching the full moon digitally

My friend Janet and I went to the water’s edge, wine glasses in hand, Sunday evening around 7pm to wait for the moon to rise. As I set up my photo equipment, the sky was just starting to turn that really great cobalt blue color that it gets right before dark sets in.

The moon was due to rise at 7:07 and we didn’t see anything until our friend Marlene called us over to a spot where you could see through the Australian pines, and there it was….big, beautiful and amazing. It was already 7:21 by then.

Check out the cool shot of the American flag and the moon. Janet worked hard to try to get that flag to fly and it did.

It was so nice to slow down and enjoy all that nature had on display for us Sunday evening.

For those that might be interested;

I was using a Canon 100-400 mm f4.5-5.6L series lens on my Canon 5D Mark II body, I had it mounted on a tripod and had to use manual focus, auto focus only worked for the super close ups.

Most of the shots were hit or miss. I tried different exposures until I got the ones I wanted. Even though, it was impossible to get detail in the moon and get the reflection of the moon on the clouds. I had to overexpose to get the clouds, which ends up blurring  the moon somewhat, and underexpose to get detail in the moon. I decided to combine a properly exposed shot of the moon with a good exposure of the overall shot. That worked.

The early shots, with the dark blue sky were shot at 1/40 f5.6 -1EV. The night shots were 0.5 sec at f7.1 and 0.8 sec at f5.6.

The Full Moon on October 4th.

The full moon rising and losing it's yellow orange color.

The full moon behind the American Flag.

Photo of the moon as it rises higher in the sky and reflects on the intracoastal. Great clouds.

In this photograph the moon has risen above the clouds.

Photographs of the birds that flew by in less than one hour.

I just had to share this with you.

I needed a break from working on the computer, so I walked down to our little slice of unspoiled nature along the Intracoastal Waterway with my camera and telephoto lens. Within minutes I saw so much, I just stood there and shot photograph after photograph while the parade went by, it was like watching a Mutual of Omaha Wildlife Show. :  ) It was about 4:30 in the afternoon, so it was getting close to supper time in the bird world.

Look at what I got. I shot a common tern, several pelicans, a male osprey (he looked young, I wonder if he was migrating???), and a female osprey coming in for a landing.

The (young??) male osprey that flew overhead really upset our local female osprey, Koko. Her alarm call was going full blast. My next mission is to use my camera to shoot some video of her. She’s got a great voice. It must be shared.

Here are my flying bird photos, they were shot at 1/800 with f5.6 to f6.3 using a Canon 100-400 f4.5-5.6L series lens on a Canon 5D Mark II body. I’m happy with the results I get with this lens camera combo, it’s the best yet. These photos have been cropped so you can see the details better. I hope you like them.

Photo of pelicans flying overhead.

A close shot of one of the pelicans.

This is the male osprey that flew by

Another shot of the "young" male that flew over.

The female osprey, I call her Koko, comes in for a landing.

Another in a series of shots of Koko coming in for a landing on her perch.

A common tern flew overhead.