The past three mornings I had tried to catch the waning crescent moon, the Newport Bridge and the rising sun with the bridge and was met with success and failure.
Using a telephoto lens with a teleconvertor, you have to be patient when setting focus. You are fighting the focal length, any slight breeze, small vibrations, and of course, your settings…which of course, only comes after you get to the right location to set up composition.
Sunrise and moon trajectory apps, are good…but not perfect. Locations can be off by hundreds of yards and your dealing with small windows of micro-seconds to line up celestrial objects with terrestial landmarks….F**k.
Some shots that I miss, I won’t have an opportunity for a couple years…..until the literal moon, earth and sun line up perfectly. Photoshopping isn’t always the fun way to do things….you have to earn it. (*Note, NO Photoshop was used for these images – a couple are completely unedited and most are touched with global adjustments in Lightroom)
Air refraction was an issue as I was about 3.5 miles away from the bridge and I had to keep upping the shutter speed to decrease the blur of the intricate details of the bridge. Only about a dozen of images were good of about 200 taken.
So, below is a collection of the last three mornings. While I have accumulated hundreds and hundreds of shots of the Newport Bridge, it’s a facinating subject that I will continue to shoot long to come.
******By the way, don’t use a telephoto directly into the sun unless you have a solar filter and/or understand the risks to your camera (and eyesight) if you don’t use a filter. It can melt your retina AND camera’s sensor right quick.******
