halo Archives - Bliss Photographics

Posted on April 3, 2020March 27, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Moon Backcountry Post Sitting

I find that the moon is a lazy celestial object. Always sitting down on the job. Here I caught the sneaky planetoid before lifting off the backcountry folding chair it was sitting on. Who knows how long it was sitting there. I mean it only moved after I pointed a camera at it… This color is it’s “Blush” of “being caught” sitting down on the job I suspect. I’ve seen a red flush before too. Easily flustered I think… 😜📸

I catch our old orbiting neighbor resting on unusual things all the time walking parallel Ridges along the shadow line. Missed are a million moments in time depending on the angle you find yourself observing a particular scene at. Every different angle will give you an entirely different viewpoint. I’m always looking at angles and what I have to do to achieve the perspective I’m looking for.

The ability to anticipate the way things WILL happen and being there with a camera in your hand is about 50 percent of the photography game. The rest of getting the photo is reliant of your positioning before that time/space moment. My biggest limiting factor besides gravity is topography of course. You can’t walk where there isn’t ground I have found. 😔🤘

Halo’s around the moon are tough to capture. Try it…. I’ve been known to climb on my vehicles roof to get just a little more height. It would be nice to have a folding ladder from time to time too angles being what angles are. . 😜

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

TItle: Moon Backcountry Post Sitting

Posted on April 1, 2020March 26, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Blue Veiled Moon Rising

This is the second image from this timeline I finished.

Capturing a Halo around a full moon is not that easy as the full moon’s brightness usually overpowers the dimmer clouds surrounding. Most cameras can’t take it but the veil of clouds reducing the brightness REALLY helps. I look at this with awe. It’s a rare confluence of lighting that allows this. Agood moon halo is tough to capture. Dynamic Range is a big deal in cameras if your working in dim light. The ability to see that halo is a direct function of your cameras ability to see the details of the hair on a black cat in a coal bin. Just apply that attribute here.

Photographic Musings: To take a full moon without clouds, the ISO 100, 1/100th and f-11 manual mode settings are a good starting place. This is more like ISO 250, 1/50th and f11 (lowest f stop/biggest aperture on this telephoto.) Your shutter speed is your variable of the three settings you have control of in Manual Mode. The other two settings are more or less standard for moon work unless you have very fast long lenses.

Everything changes if you are using a fast f-4.5 600mm super-telephoto lol. Fast telephotos are wonderful for this if you have a camera with a very wide dynamic range too. 15 f-stops dynamic ranch in these high end Sony Cameras ….. The ability to see the darks against the brights is what that is all about. Dynamic Range in your camera is a big deal if your working low lights, twilights and nights. I used a big super-telephoto fast Canon lens on a Sony Alpha 7RII to do this work. A 600mm supertelephoto lens is somewhere in the 6000 dollar range. IT’s obviously prohibitive and 13K to buy one new. I suggest getting a used one through either E-bay or Amazon as you typically CAN return things unless otherwise stated. 🤔👀📸

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

Title: Blue Veiled Moon Rising

Posted on March 25, 2020March 25, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Once in a Blue Moon

I look at this with awe as it’s a rare confluence of lighting that allows a good halo to be captured around the moon.

Photographic Musings:

To take a full moon without clouds, the ISO 100, 1/100th and f-11 manual mode settings are a good starting place. This is more like ISO 250, 1/50th and f11 (lowest f stop/biggest aperture on this telephoto. Your shutter speed is your variable of the three settings. The other two settings are more or less standard for moon work unless you have very fast long lenses. Everything changes if you are using a f-4.5 600mm super-telephoto lol. Fast telephotos are wonderful for this if you have a camera with a very wide dynamic range too. The ability to see the darks against the brights is what that is all about. Dynamic Range in your camera is a big deal if your working low lights, twilights and nights.

I used a big super-telephoto fast Canon lens on a Sony Alpha 7RII to do this work. That lens is somewhere in the 6000 dollar range used. IT’s obviously prohibitive and 13K to buy one new. I suggest getting a used one through either ebay or amazon as you typically CAN return things unless otherwise stated.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

Title: Once in a Blue Moon

Posted on November 11, 2019November 16, 2019 by Bliss

22 Degree Halo Perspective

This 22 Degree Halo Perspective is a really gold colored on in my experience.

I’ve seen them white before like the clouds on the right but the mid-golden hour lighting seemed amazing to me. Click The halo is actually a transmissive rainbow of sorts. Most rainbows are reflective with the sun behind you and the. This 22 degree Halo is between the sun and you.

Sun Halo’s are not uncommon but you have to look at the sun to seen them which can be a bright thing,. Usually you have to squint eyes then block the sun with your hand to resolve them against the glare. The discussion on what a sun halo is caused by would be about 300 words so I’ll leave that for another day…..

The ranch gate here I framed quite formally with a very wide (120 degree) 10mm lens. It’s a precise frame to the Landscape/ 2×3 aspect of this capture. Done in the camera not really in the crop as this is a full sized 2×3 feet image at high resolution.

A tad of Photographic musing:

Priority (working on Manual)

Your lenses will differ but this lens focuses as close as one foot . Use High F-stop as your priority. That’s a deep focal field your seeing. (high f stop numbers mean a deep field of focus for you to use but at the cost of a lot less light going into the camera. Your only able to gather light through the now pin hole in the lens’s aperture). Google f-stop and learn what it means (if your trying to learn how to use your camera. (I buy some lenses based on how close they focus at a minimum. There are ways to shorten focus distances but there are problems with that too lol.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Title: 22 Degree Halo Perspective

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

An Echinacea Silhouette From One Moment in Time

This Cone Flower (Echinacea) is a wonderful summer flower with this silhouette captured from one moment in time. There are millions of them on this ranch being ubiquitous in the borderlands.

This kind of sunset lends itself to silhouettes with a particular lens I like to use for it’s smooth as silk bokeh.
Obviously this is from this summer and not current. I will be posting a mix and match all winter with summer photos creeping in where ever they occur in my workflow. I have a folder with close to 1000 images to finish at the moment lolol (laughing maniacally) …..

Location: Bliss DInoasur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.