The Full Moon Photo Trip
I mentioned back on the 1st that I was going to try to get out on a full-moon photo shoot. I did get out, and it was as beautiful as I could have hoped for, but then life got crazy again and I haven’t had a chance to tell you about it. The sun set just after 5:30, and the moon didn’t come up over the mountain ridges until about 9:00. I chased it up the Tagish Road for a few miles, but the shots I hoped for just didn’t materialize anywhere except in my mind. This first shot was taken down at the BC-Yukon border at 10:16, looking north up Windy Arm past the “Welcome to the Yukon” sign.
I played with the settings on the camera a lot, and had a fair number of shots that I wasn’t happy with. There’s where digital technology makes all the difference in whether or not I have fun. Not only do I head home knowing what I have “in the can”, it also hasn’t cost me anything. I suppose that ultimately isn’t true, as some day I’ll have to spend another $2,000 on equipment when I wear yet another camera system out. This 2nd shot was taken looking south towards the historic Venus Mine at 10:23. This and the previous shot were taken so you could imagine what the actual drive was like. I just stopped in the travelling lane and set up my tripod on the white line – while I wouldn’t do it on a blind corner since I’ve been burned by “Murphy’s Laws” before, the odds of another vehicle coming along were slim.
Emerald Lake was one of the main focusses of this outing, and this scene was captured at 11:00 p.m. The exposure on this shot was was 3.2 seconds at f3.5 with my 18-55mm zoom at its widest view. Speaking of focusses, the Digital Rebel isn’t really good at low-light focussing, and switching to manual focus was necessary for most shots. I had hoped for a few of the cliche shots of streaming vehicle lights, but by this point, an hour and a half into the trip, I had ony seen 2 vehicles, and in neither meeting was I set up to catch them.
This final image was taken off my deck at 11:44 – a fine scene to end the “work” before packing the tripod away, putting the camera batteries in the charger, and pouring myself a glass of Glenfiddich.
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