glow Archives - Bliss Photographics

Posted on March 8, 2020March 2, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Window to the Moon

Window to the Moon (Take you back 8 months for this one)

In my side yard is a wonderful old tree that I seldom work with cameras. I had to get enough distance away such that the camera could focus on both the foreground / background. Then I had to find a very rare hole in the canopy to set up the composition. This photography stuff is tough to get all the angles and distances to overcome the limitations of the technology we use.

Close / Far perspectives such as this are indeed a sub-hobby of mine within the larger world of photography I immerse myself in.

Photographic Musings:

You’ll need a 400mm or longer 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 1/2 second time exposure if you have a tripod would be nice to compensate. You need a Longer exposure… That means more light into the camera to compensate for the high F-stop’s little pin hole aperture. 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). Around ISO 500 should get you close with these other settings and a long lens. 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 (Wyotana)

Title: Window to the Moon

Posted on February 16, 2020February 8, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Moon Rise in Pitch Black

Moon Rise in Pitch Black (This is the Moon NOT the sun AND full Screen is a Must).

Moony Alpenglow I’m thinking. This is a 20 second long time widefield exposure with the camera aperture at low f-numbers (wide open). ISO is less than 1000 for this. High ISO is an evil thing in night time exposures.

I don’t do much work late at night as I do photography all day so there has to be a nap time somewhere. On the occasional night when I’m up over a mile away from my door up on Ridge 1 late at night, I usually bring a tracker along. Set up on Polaris. Takes a few minutes usually. Your camera mounts right to the tracker. 300 -400 bucks on amazon.

Rule of 600 in Star Photography:

The rule states that the maximum length of an exposure with stars that doesn’t result in star streaks is achieved by dividing the effective focal length of the lens into the number 600. A 50mm lens on a full sized sensor camera, therefore would allow 600 / 50 = 12 seconds of exposure before streaks are noticeable. That is unless you are using a device that moves the camera the same rate as the stars move. These “trackers” are a fairly inexpensive gadget but you do have to understand how to find Polaris (North star). Then you can take sharp stars over long intervals instead of getting lines from them moving.

Of course 20 seconds with a wide open iris totally overexposes the moon. That was the point. I wanted to see the moony Alpenglow it was projecting even faintly visible to my naked eyes lolol.

Location Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana).

Title: Moon Rise in Pitch Black

Posted on January 2, 2020December 29, 2019 by Frank Bliss

Moon Sun by Frank Bliss

Hybrid Art but I still offer you the sun and the moon…. now where are those stars lolol.

Just playing with various images. All work and no play makes Frank a dull boy….. The glow is from around the sun, the rising moon cut out was put on top. It’s interesting that the moon and the sun appear at exactly the same size taken with the same fixed lens. This is why we have solar eclipses. The do appear exactly the same size. Sometimes when the moon is really far away we have annular eclipses where you can see the sun around the edge of the moon. Only posted on my personal FB page but it is in my gallery.

Shortest narrative ever as I didn’t get into the fact that the moon was WAY closer in the prehistoric past and is slowly moving away. That discussion is saved for another day lol.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Title: Moon Sun by Frank Bliss

Posted on October 21, 2019November 16, 2019 by Bliss

Moon Setting over the Red Hills

This sliver of Moon setting over the 40 mile distant “Red Hills” from my vantage point was the last setting/bit of the full Hunter moon this year. This is deep in twilight and was a very dark environment. This is actually a 1 second time exposure. There really wasn’t much light from that moon sliver…. It was still pretty dark with these pro Sony cameras just being able to make out the landscape.

Normally, the amount of light put out by the moon lighting up the clouds around it all the way down but you can’t capture that with current technology…. It’s pretty hard to get that in the camera unless you have something to filter out most the moon light. Here I’m using a ridge to balance the difference between the two light levels. The moon isn’t overwhelming the faint glow from the clouds with this little sliver. A “Ridge Filter” so to speak. Got the glow in the clouds😄

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Posted on October 6, 2019October 5, 2019 by Bliss

Wetland Sunrise on the Montana with Wyoming Border

Yesterday morning in the Wetlands watching Sunrise directly on the Montana with Wyoming border north of Gillette Wyoming. It is 70 miles to the nearest 4 way 3 color stop light from this spot and several miles from the nearest county road. It’s a nice place to spend the dawn this time of year. With the mosquito population knocked down and a lot of the grass has been knocked down by the heavy wet snow blanket that fell Oct 1. It’s relatively easy to get around with low water in October in this wetland area.

This spot is literally 1/2 way between the Equator and the North Pole at precisely 45 degrees north latitude (the Montana/Wyoming border too).🤔 We are also about 120 miles from the geographic center of the North American continent. You couldn’t get much further from an Ocean than this spot….literally lol. No local “Red Lobster” . It’s a good thing I have all this Cretaceous Hell Creek/Lance Formation Dinosaur Bearing Sandstones all over the place covering the ranch to keep me feeling like I’m at the beach..digging a hole in 100 degree sand when I look for fossils in the summer sun… 🤣.

We pay taxes in both states. My son went to HS in Montana, our main residence is Wyoming technically by 1/2 mile. We actually have about 1/2 the ranch’s land in either state.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming and Montana on both sides of that border.