Moonrise

When the moon finally did escape the clouds enough to be seen it had not risen over the skyline like I imagined but much further south. Oh well, it was a nice way to spend an evening. I suspect the moon does rise over the skyline here but not perhaps until next spring.

Sunset Skyline

The reason I was out on Macaulay Point a few evenings ago was not to catch the sunset, although it is a good place to do that, but to catch that big harvest moon we had a few nights ago. I wanted to photograph it rising over the city,somewhere near the center of the photo above. As you can see, it's not there. I'll explain why in Monday's post.

Moon Shot

This is not the eclipsed moon but a photo I took on the previous evening. I went out to prepare for the eclipse with some different lenses and equipment. Above is what the nearly full moon looked like through a 400mm telephoto doubled with an extender to 800mm. While I was pleased with the amount of detail that is visible I decided that I would shoot the eclipse the next night using a normal lens (50mm) to show it as we saw it. It's nice to see the moon as it is in the above photo but it's almost a bit scary since it really looks like a great big rock hanging in the sky.

Eclipse

For those of you who might have missed it last night, here is what the eclipse of the moon looked like over Victoria. I took this photo down on Dallas Road overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca and there were thousands of people out to see the moon.

Arbutus Moon

Moon

The new digital cameras have all sorts of capabilities that are not immediately obvious so, to those of you who are as backward as myself, I suggest you start experimenting with all those buttons and controls you normally don't touch. Although I've been using my latest camera almost daily for over six months I just discovered that it has an interesting and useful function I hadn't even imagined. It's a built in digital 2X teleconverter. This is like being able to double the magnifying power of whatever lens you're using. Above is a photo that is a first experiment with this function using the 300mm telephoto lens times 2 to yield a whopping 600mm. Lenses with this power typically sell for thousands so this is a very nice feature. It also means that I can carry fewer lenses around with me since I can, if necessary, extend the focal length of the lenses in my bag through the use of the built-in teleconverter. I write "if necessary" because, although Sony says,"The system reproduces pixels on a 1:1 basis so there's no degradation in picture quality," it seems to me that there is a bit of image degradation. But if one needs that magnification it's nice to have the option without always carrying around a heavy telephoto lens.

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What's normally on my camera or in my camera bag?

1. The Sony kit lens - an 18-55mm zoom, or some other mid-range zoom


2. 90mm macro lens for closeups


3. 10-20mm wide angle


4. 75-300 or 500mm prime telephoto

I usually have some idea what I'll be shooting before I leave the house so the telephoto or the macro may get left behind. I get a little choosy now because this stuff is heavy and if you spend all day lugging around two or three lenses that never come out of the bag you start to try to think ahead a bit. The flip side, of course, is missing a great shot because you don't have the right lens with you. The teleconverter mentioned above probably means I won't carry around a telephoto lens unless I know I'm likely to encounter some wildlife or some other special situation requiring telephoto or I'll carry a shorter-range, lighter telephoto like an 80-200mm.

Moon and Seagull

Looking into the Inner Harbour from Victoria West. It was a very windy day and the gulls were having a hard time flying against the wind. This one decided to stop to catch his breath beneath a small arbutus tree.

Below is the best I could do for St. Patrick's day (there are some shamrocks in the bottom part of the picture!)