Wanting to catch early morning light at this remote location, I decided to camp out in the car. Around one a.m. I woke up, and was captivated by the moonlight. I worked a couple of different compositions, and saw this one just before heading back. A 25 sec. exposure allowed to retain quite a bit of detail in the shadow areas. As cold and windy as it was, I am glad I got up to enjoy the magic of the moonlight.
Specific Feedback Requested
Any feedback welcomed. Struggling a bit with the color. Overall happy with it, but the open field to the left in the background, I am not quite sure about…
Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
Nikon D850, 22mm (16-35mm),
25 sec, ISO 640, f/4.5
Hey @J_Fritz_Rumpf I tried to take this in a bit more dramatic direction as the landscape seem to scream out drama to me! Such a cool location. It felt too bright overall for a night image so I messed with it a bit. Not sure if it is “better” but I wanted to emphasize the spire as it is pretty special.
Moonlight and long exposures can work magic. Your presentation sets off the pillar well. It does “feel” a bit bright for nighttime, but that’s the magic of a long exposure and it gets into what you want the viewers to see/feel. Some burning-in of the field would reduce how much attention it gets. This would also look good with the pillar farther to the right in the frame (you could crop this from the right to 8.5 x 11 to see that effect).
Thank you all for your feedback. Not sure where time goes; I thought I had answered the above comments. I will definitely play with the exposure a bit more.
Thank you all again for the feedback!
I have not a lot of experience with long exposures taken in the night, but a common problem seems to be that the photo ends up looking like a dark daytime photo. I think the darker versions of this photo just look like an underexposed daytime photo. Even though there are stars they are not prominant, and my brain just gets confused looking at it. I’m not sure there is a solution…
