Moon Chasing and Infrared

Setting Moon Over Schneeberg
400mm, 1/2s, f/11, ISO 100 

Today we had full moon.
On top of that moon set and sunrise occurred almost at the same time. If you check it upfront, it is great photo opportunity. However I was not very lucky today. Starting with the weather, it was good, way too good! No single clouds, absolutely clear sky around full horizon. When I drugged myself out of bed at 3 a.m. and looked through the window and saw fantastically bright moon and the sky... well, I knew it would not be my great photo day. In such cases we have to try the best from what we get. Few days before I planned to get to Hohe Wand, 50 km south of Vienna. There is one spot with panorama tower where you have good 360 degrees view. Moon was setting just above Schneeberg tops. 4-5 minutes later sun was supposed to rise in exactly opposite direction. I needed full panorama view.

Setting Moon Over Schneeberg
200mm, 0.4s, f/11, ISO 100 

Weather was too good as I said before, then on the way one of the roads was closed due to some construction works and I lost precious time. I left home around 03:40 being sure to arrive at the location around 04:30 having about one hour to set myself up, do test shots, frame etc. Unfortunately due to de-tour I got to this watch tower few minutes after 5 leaving me really with only about 10 minutes of moon view before it hid behind Schneeberg. Well, shit happens. I got what I got but I am not happy with results. Then I turned my had backwards and as predicted by great people the sun rose as planned and at place where it should show up. It simply emerged from misty layers of thin clouds. North east side looked misty as was not as clear as south west. I took few shots knowing they would never win the prize.

I am disappointed with that part of the session including also issue with one of my lenses which annoys me more and more. 70-200mm  is a heavy duty lens but seems that my concert photography work around people and crowd successfully helped it to go nuts. Front element becomes more and more loose, not the glass but metal cover became quite loose and focusing ring gets stuck especially around infinity area. Lens got hit on numerous occasions so I am not surprised too much. At one gig someone dancing pogo hit the lens so hard when I was looking through viewfinder, camera hit my lip and teeth and I really felt it. My lip was bleeding for few minutes. In autofocus it still works perfectly well, but manual focusing becomes a problem. Need to send it to service or get new one.

Sunrise viewed from Hohe Wand, right after moon set
140mm, 0.5s, f/11, ISO 100

Besides lens issue, I knew that being on the tower I will not have any foreground to place on the picture so at least I hoped for some sky action. Well, it did not happen... next time. Need to check when the situation more or less repeats.

But I still wanted to get something from today. On the way back, still in the area of Hohe Wand, I stopped by Sky Walk - metal pier sticking out of the rock cliff. Some people are afraid to walk it ... and especially look down through their feet. Anyway, I stopped by. It was around 7 a.m. with sun already relatively high and very strong - I say it again no single cloud. I thought it is good to play with infrared filter to get some perhaps not better but for sure different effect.

Infrared view from Hohe Wand by Sky Walk
24mm, 4 min, f/16, ISO 400

I framed towards the town below trying to capture some greens (trees) as foreground and shot. I cannot really call it a shot. Infrared filters absorb tons of light. Actually cameras you get have built in anti infrared filter to block infrared and now I am trying to neutralize it by apply it again. The cost is very long exposure time. Also not every lens is really good for infrared. In some cases you might get really ligther red spot right in the middle of the frame. You have test each lens or search the web. I am using Hoya R72 Infrared filter. It is not the best, not the sharpest and takes about 14 stops of light. From normal exposure calculated at ISO 100, F/16, 1/25s I had to go all the way to ISO400, F/16, and 4 minutes! I have also infrared filter from LEE but have to play with it, if this one does not work for me, I will need to get my old camera adapted for infrared which means to remove original infrared protection once and for all.

Infrared view from Hohe Wand by Sky Walk
24mm, 4 min, f/16, ISO 400

The good thing about long exposure is that you can simply sit for 4+4 minutes each time and enjoy the nature around you. Why 4+4 minutes? Well, normally I switch off all de-nosing options in the camera and I take care of the noise in the post production. However especially during hot day, with long exposure the sensor gets hot resulting with even more colour noise than usual. Camera built-in long exposure noise reduction system "shoots" second black picture right after original one and then removes all those red, blue and other colours spots from original picture resulted from the heat of the sensor. Those changes are applied to RAW files. This is the only exception. Typical high ISO noise reductions are only applied to JPG previews.
I long shot few pictures and another hour or so passed. Time to go for breakfast!

Hohe Wand Ants
70mm, 1/200, f/5.6, ISO 200

Just before that I thought, lets get some nature macro shots... I saw some ants before, let's give them a go...

Few learnings...
- get up earlier than planned to give yourself time buffer for unexpected
- adapt to situation, planned shots do not work out too good, take other ones to save the day
- experiment with something different
- always enjoy.

Cheers
Jerzy