Moonlight Seranade

F/16, 15", ISO-200, 50mm

I was on my way home from my second job one evening when I happened to notice how bright the moon was, and made a note to myself to see if there wasn’t some interesting way I could frame it once I got home. Besides, it was another opportunity with my amazing quality, amazingly cheap, lens. I stepped outside my door and cast a skeptical eye upwards. I admit I didn’t have a lot of faith in the potential at first. I thought I’d have been better off in a different location. But it was too late to travel (I have a primary job to get to early in the morning too). Still, I had a few minutes I could spare just to see how the lens would fare. So I dutifully set up the tripod and did my best to focus. There was horrible flare that killed most of the snaps I got with the framing that I thought I wanted. Reluctantly I adjusted the camera slightly so the flare was far off to the left and inwardly growled at the leaves in the way of my beautiful moon shot. It had risen just a bit too high. I wanted the suggestion of the leaves around the moon but little else (if I wanted anything at all anyway – I still wasn’t really trying very hard. You can tell because I couldn’t be bothered to move the tripod a half inch to the left, or lower it a half inch, to take care of what I thought were the framing problems.)

With dismay downloaded the photos to my PC and was unimpressed. But the very last shot I converted to black and white, and it made all the difference (it frequently does). Pump up the contrast very slightly, and I had a picture I’m fairly proud of (thought I may attempt this again – I was hoping with a bit more depth of field or focus in general with an aperture that small).