Pic(k) of the week 47: Four in a row

Lately, I seem to be in my night photography mode... I had marked yesterday as "full moon photography" in my calendar.  And so I did !

For those of you that are not up to speed with the Lunar phases, on a full moon night, the moon rises at about the same time as the sun sets. Of course on opposite sites! Normally a good moment to photograph a moonrise. 
Using the iPhone app "Magic hour" (the former Vela Clock), I determined that the moon was rising at 1759 at an azimuth of 063 deg (close to East North East). 

Before leaving home, I used Google Earth to find a good spot to photograph with a desert background. About 15 mins before the moonrise I was all set up. Perfect timing.

While the moonrise images were fine, it did not make it to my Pic(k) of the week. Click here to see an example of it.  

Pic(k) of the week 47: Four in a row
While the moon was climbing above the horizon, I decided to do a 4 exposure moonrise image without the desert background. The image is straight out of the camera, using the "image overlay" function in the retouch menu of my Nikon D700. To be honest, this was the first time I used it and I'm very pleased with the result! One basically needs to fix the camera on a good tripod and then take several timed exposures. Activating a function on the camera then merges all images. I used 4 minutes between all 4 exposures. The final image reminds me of the game, "Four in a row".

One can see the change in color and brightness as the moon gets higher. This has to do with the amount of atmosphere the moonlight has to cross. A low moon crosses through more dust and atmosphere than a high one. More info is available here.

Image details:
Nikon D700 with Nikkor 70-200 2.8 + 1.7 teleconverter
ISO 200, 340mm, f7.1, 1/125s 
in camera merging of the 4 exposures
single RAW developed in Lightroom 3


For a long time, I've been after a specific moon shot. Until today, I still do not have the shot, but yesterday I did come close... Check out the Bjorn Moerman Photography Facebook page for more!

Take that lens cap off,

BJORN
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