Chia Archives - Bliss Photographics

Posted on January 2, 2020December 30, 2019 by Frank Bliss

Skull Moon Atmospheric Lensing

It appears (to me anyway), like a skull looking up/left. What do I know as I have an overactive imagination. Great image for Halloween or just the 2nd day of January when this first posts lolol.

Heres an image from April of 2018 that I just finished. There wasn’t much to do to it. This shot is an interesting distortion by the 400 miles of atmosphere the setting moon light has to travel through to get to my camera. Changes in air density and humidity make for surfaces that refract/bend light just a little bit. This is metaphorically an imperfection in a glass lens.

Your actually looking at the moon when it is geometrically below the horizon as that same aforementioned atmospheric lens is at work. The atmospheric lens bends the light so that the sun and the moon actually set a little bit after the scheduled time for setting. They also rise just before they are scheduled to do so because their image is bent around the planet.

Waxing Gibbous Moon leans to the right as it sets. The little crater dot on the 3 o-clock position is a moon setting position. That crater, (Mare Crisium is it’s name) will be positioned at 12 o-clock for a rising moon image/scene. Keep your eye on that little Mare next time you see a photo of the moon situated on the horizon.

The ridge in the foreground is about 1000 yards out in this 3200mm telescopic shot. It was quite pitch black when this was happening.

Good Evening All and be safe in what you do.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana

Title: Skull Moon Atmospheric Lensing

Posted on December 26, 2019December 26, 2019 by Frank Bliss

Dinosaurs and Birds Moon Watching

I Love scientific irony….

It’s not a composite which is why it’s not quite what I wanted focus wise. It took a LOT of smoothing though to compensate for the low light gain as this was handheld (high camera sensitivity gives big chunky grains) .Atmospheric distortion was scalloping the edge of the moon too. I even had to give somewhere with the focus and that was on the moon. I was overly close to the Bird to do this ideally so I’ll use the image to teach. It’s still a pretty cool capture lol.

Photographic Musings.

What you have to do if you just don’t have enough distance from the close object….. HINT: focus BETWEEN the terrestrial object and the moon having each JUST A LITTLE blurry.
Hopefully your highest possible f-stop number for your lens is used. F-stop will give you a deep field of focus. The bottom line is distance from the terrestrial object is your friend. The field of focus may be big enough to bring both into focus. Not perfectly here. Wish I would have had enough time for a tripod. The bird wasn’t well compensated for his time and he left pretty quickly lolol.

Something to consider:
Dinosaurs peered at the same moon that this modern version of an Avian Dinosaur is watching right now. I love ironic scientific connections. I point out that with time the moon is moving away from the earth so the moon was a little bigger and closer during the age of the dinosaurs. It was closer the further back in time you go.

Title:Dinosaurs and Birds Moon Watching

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Posted on December 6, 2019November 30, 2019 by Frank Bliss

Windmill Crescent Moon Filter

Way outside a normal photographic challenge. I come up with these ideas, show up to the time and place. Then I have to figure out how to capture such a low light event. 🤔📷

This was a 1/15th second time exposure as it was very dark out for this. The wind was BARELY moving the windmill’s sail. The camera is about 400 yards from the windmill’s blurred fan (in the camera). The moon was 200+ thousand miles out and only about 3 percent illuminated. The morning sky was full of a dark brown ice glow starting into alpenglow.

A big 600 mm fast lenses will do wonderful captures if you can keep them still enough. Any wind on a big camera lens in this amount of light is a tough photographic environment. A shot timer in the camera is a good thing (or a remote shutter switch). It takes a second or two for a really big lens to settle down motion induced by the click. The Montana/Wyoming borderlands I frequent are mostly high ridges. The wind is actually higher up here than down at more reasonable altitudes. Truly this is a tough photographic environment to catch such a low light moment in space and time.

To catch a blurred windmill sail as well as a dim crescent in the same photo….. Taking photos in very low light at distance is an interesting game. If you get a chance to try this with your gear, start at a 1/15th second time exposure. Go longer if you need if your tripod mounting the camera.

Artistically I was compositing two nested arcs in the same image. I believe this was about 1 hour before sunrise. Taken during either late astronomic twilight or earliest nautical twilight. There was just a slight glow in the sky, just enough to eek this image out.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands

Title: Windmill Crescent Moon Filter

Posted on December 3, 2019November 27, 2019 by Frank Bliss

Moon Resting on Wolf’s Head

Moon Resting on Wolf’s Head Butte is one of my favorite Moon “Cradle” capture.

Satire: I’ve found that the Moon will often take just a second to rest on a comfortable spot before the effort to rise to it’s zenith. Some of these buttes have what I call “Moon cradles” where the moon can settle down for a moment. Fortunately, it never sits there for long. 😜😜

Back to my normal programming.

Getting terrestrial objects in focus along with the moon…. Be still my heart. It’s a hobby of mine within my larger photographic world catching the moon resting on things. I do get some requests for information on how to do this.

Photographic Musings:

In a nutshell, you need a 400 -600mm lens, distance, timing, topography and a full moon. Distance from the foreground object is your friend. So is a HIGH f-stop number (f22 or higher). High f-stop gives you a deep field of focus that extends foreground object to infinity (moon). Being the double edged sword that f-stop is, by turning it up, you reduce the already low light level in the camera. A short 3 second time exposure if you have a tripod would be nice to compensate. Longer exposure means more light into the camera.. I did this handheld at about 1/30th second. Your ISO (camera sensitivity) is your wildcard. Change it to get an image as rule one is get the image…damn the graininess (which high ISO will give you). There are only three things you have to adjust to use your camera on manual mode after all.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands

Title: Moon Resting on Wolf’s Head Butte

Posted on November 26, 2019November 25, 2019 by Bliss

Buck Watching the Moon

This is a Game Trail Camera Capture with only the IR flash and the crescent moon to provide light. This cameras is actually at ground level looking upward at 46 degrees and caught this pensive look up. I thought was pretty cool catching a Buck watching the Crescent Moon. I put a piece of thick plastic under it to keep dirt from being kicked up by rain as it’s literally at ground level.

I’m always complaining how Game Trail Camera images are to a one problems to fix. I didn’t have to do too much to this capture at all really. It’s pretty good for right out of a Trail Cam.

This is a square 18×18 inch aspect image only in B+W. The infrared in converted to Black and White easily. If I do IR with my pro-cameras, they come out pink so the software in the Game Trail Camera does a conversion. IR is ALWAYS grainy so what you see is what you get but the candid nature of these cameras keep me working them hard. I currently have 28 that I’m caring for. (just added 2 more).

I had pulled a pile of game trail cameras off summer trails and am moving them to winter hangouts. Certain traffic patterns develop that I try to recognize to know where to put these automatic image devices. Deer tend to hang out in hollows with access to water. If you can set up a “funnel” by leaving a gate open, or figure out where they hang out, you chances get better. Natural funnels are something to really look for. Water holes are obvious places to put game trail cameras. Everybody has a drink a few times a day.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Title: Buck Watching the Moon

Posted on November 12, 2019November 16, 2019 by Bliss

“That’s No Moon”

“That’s No Moon” is a classical quote an early Star Wars Movie. If you know the reference, you could be my friend 😜 Every special operator ever minted knows it lolol. You know who you are.

The far Ridge is the northern Big Horn Mountain Range at 130 miles out , it cuts the moon off a bit above the green treed ridge. That ridge is the Red Hills at 40 miles from my camera. The foreground landscape is about 8 miles out from my camera.

This is moon set not rise so technically the quote above wouldn’t apply lol. There is only a few opportunities a month for images as this. Mostly you just can’t see the moon through all the hazy atmosphere at the horizon.

I’m actually looking across the Montana/Wyoming border to get this angle. I was indeed lining up that foreground mountain hump with the hump of the moon. I actually think about abstract stuff like that but it does get over demanding this bad case of OCD I have. lololol.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Title: “That’s No Moon”