Moonlit Nights
Skiing Coopers Rock by Moonlight
There was no need for a headlamp last night. The almost full moon lit the trail out to Coopers Rock’s overlook with a perfect glow. We skied in via roadside trial, and back via the road.
We made it up to Coopers around 9:30pm, skiing to the overlook and back by 11:30pm, and home by midnight.
Night Photography
A few things to remember when shooting at night:
- Use a Tripod
- Use at least a 2 second delay (I often use 5 seconds), to remove any camera shake. Or, use a remote trigger
- Make sure noise reduction for high ISO and long shutter speeds are enabled.
- Use manual focus (when capturing stars, focus at infinity, or just a hair back off from it).
- After setting the focus, check the first shot by zooming in on the playback image (recheck the focus often as moving about can budge things).
- On cropped sensor cameras be careful of high ISO ranges as they produce a lot of noise. I take great photos at an ISO of 3200 on my D800 (full frame sensor), but anything above ISO 800 on my D300s (cropped sensor) is almost worthless.
- Modulate the shutter speed and aperture based on your composition and light demands.
- Try to keep the ISO as low as possible, but don’t be afraid to play with the higher values. Just remember with higher ISO levels comes more noise and a lower dynamic range.
- The list goes on, but these few tip are enough to get the wheels turning.
I’ll gladly answer other questions though, just leave a comment at the end of the post!
This is a 51.6 megapixel image. I’m making 30 signed and numbered canvas prints of this image available at it’s native size of 32 in by 17 in. I should have a few ready in the next week or so.
And… don’t leave your tripod out on the dark trail. Or maybe that will just result in another awesome set of photos out on Coopers Rock 🙂
Indeed Anna!!! Somehow, I left my tripod at Coopers for 9 days once, sitting up 15 feet from the trail. I couldn’t figure out what I had done with it all week. I finally decided to go back to the last place I remember having it, and my son I and skied about 3/4 of a mile in where I saw it, just sitting there (see attached pic). Thanks again, Anna, for your positive thoughts in knowing I’d find it 🙂 Lesson: Always turn around and look back!
Spectacular. Thank you for the instructions and the info on the crop sensor cameras as I have the 7D. How do we sign up for one of the signed prints? I’d love one depending on the price.
Thanks Tara, I’m much obliged. The 7D is a great camera. I’ll add a buy link in the next few days for the limited canvas prints. They’re going to be quite large, and I print, coat, and stretch the canvas myself 🙂