#52WeekProject: Moonrise over Chicago Harbor

Posted on February 16, 2015 by Justin Le

Week 28: Moonrise over Chicago Harbor

Taken on Saturday, December 6, 2014. It had been a while since I had gone out to take a picture. The last time, it was of a boat in the harbor while I was trying to do some scouting for this photo. Unfortunately, the day I originally wanted to take this photo (Nov 6th), the weather was crazy and the winds and waves ended up tearing up a lot of the lakefront and even sunk a barge. So wisely, I waited until the next full moon to take the picture. (And hooray, I didn’t get swept out to sea!)

The top picture was taken at around 4:20pm, as the sun was setting. The bottom picture was taken at around 5:01pm just after the moon rose over the horizon. The downside of having moved to December, was the moonrise ended up being 40 minutes after the sunset, so because of the darker scene, I needed to boost the exposure when caused a lot of issues. (As you can see in the blurrier bottom picture.)

In order to emphasize the moon, I wanted to use the longest focal length I could, which meant a 300mm f/4.5 manual focus lens stacked with a 2x teleconverter and a 1.4x teleconverter. This makes it an effective focal length of 1000mm and the increased distance from the focal plane reduces the overall exposure by 3 stops, so an effective aperture of about f/13. Unfortunately, because of these limitations, and the decreased ambient light, my shutter needed to be open much longer (from 1/125s to 1/2s), and with the long focal length and heavy gear on my tripod, every little vibration resulted in major blurriness in the photo. Even after I switched out the lens to the 200 f/2.8 with and only the 2x teleconverter (EFL 400mm f/5.6) at 1/6s, and you can still see major blurriness in the photo.

So, while the idea was pretty solid, the execution was pretty terrible due to the conditions and limitations of my equipment. I’m definitely going to try this photo again, and will likely aim for next year’s supermoon (Sept 27th, 2015) when the moon will be about 14% bigger, and the moon rises at 6:32pm, 7 before the sunsets. I’ll bring a sturdier tripod, and keep my fingers crossed that the weather holds up so I can shoot at some reasonable settings, so it’ll look like that top picture with a giant ass moon (not my own) in the background!

Also, I made a timelapse, which you can see below…

#52weekproject: Week 27 – A Boat at Sunset

Posted on February 11, 2015 by Justin Le

Week 27: A Boat at Sunset

Taken Monday, October 27th, 2014. I took my sweet time posting this photo, although, I’m just behind on blogging in general.

On this excursion, I went out trying to scout for a picture I was planning to take the following week. The photo I was planning on taking was a shot of the full moon rising on the horizon, with the lighthouse in the foreground using a 300mm lens with a 2x teleconverter. Using The Photographer’s Ephemeris, it would have been perfect with the moon rising around 4:46pm on Thursday, November 6th, and the sun setting around 4:38pm, which would probably have given enough ambient light to illuminate the lighthouse and not have everything else be pitch black. Unfortunately (and anti-climactically) though, on November 6th, it was majorly hazy and there were huge waves on Lake Michigan, that actually tore up the Lakefront path pretty bad, so I didn’t end up going to take the photo (and I got stuck at work a little later than planned anyway).

I think I’m going to try again on the next full moon, December 6th. We’ll see what the weather is like then. But I digress.

Anyway,about this photo. Nothing spectacular about this photo, but I just really like the light. Just the hint of orange sunlight touching the boat, the slightly choppy dark blue waves, and the vibrant red sail. Compositionally though, there’s no real balance to it. The boats directly behind it are a little distracting as it jumbles up with the mast. Ideally, if those boats were a little further to the right, it would definitely have balanced the photo out better. If I were a more dishonest man, I would have just photoshopped this photo and placed some photos to the right. I mean… It’s never too late, I might revisit this photo someday and do just that.

So what do you think?

#52weekproject: Week 25 – Anthony and Celine get Married

Posted on January 19, 2015 by Justin Le

Week 25: Anthony and Celine get Married (and Subsequently Photobombed in Yosemite)

Taken on Saturday, October 4th, 2014, in Yosemite National Park near the Swinging Bridge.

In the latter part of my vacation week this fall, I just happened to meet up with my cousin Anthony (aka Tuan), and his awesome and beautiful (very soon to be) wife, Celine (aka Che) for a “casual” get together with a bunch of family and friends. Not sure what the occasion was, but they seemed to be dressed up and celebrating something (okay, so it was their wedding). They had asked me if I would do them the great honor of taking photos for them, which I gladly obliged.

I’m not a wedding photography, although, but by this time, I have shot a handful of weddings (maybe this is my 7th?). My wedding photography has really been for close friends and family on destination weddings. So it combined my 2 favorite things… people I love, and the people they love. And travel. And photography. So, 4 favorite things.

Anyway, back to the photo… After the ceremony at Sentinel Beach, we had an awesome reception at the lodge, and we ended up taking some group photos with all the friends and family over by the Swinging Bridge area. As I fiddled with some settings to take this picture, their niece decided to pop in the frame and see what was going on.

Here are a few more from the day…

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#52WeekProject: Week 24a – Trillium Falls

Posted on January 7, 2015 by Justin Le

A Trilli, a trilli, a trilli… Trillium Falls

Taken Tuesday, September 30th, 2014.

After camping in Crater Lake with my friends, Hage and Jared, we headed to Eugene, OR, where I picked up my rental car, and had a bite to eat from a food cart at Ninkasi Brewery. I happened to leave Eugene later than intended, which found me driving on the beautiful Redwood Highway after dark. There’s a section of US 199 (between Cave Junction, where i filled up on gas, and Crescent City) that is just beautiful, and you can tell even driving after dark. With the road weaving through the groves of trees, you are just in awe of the towering trees around you, while trying not to go careening into them around curves at 45 mph.

Elk Prairie & Redwoods National Park

In any case, fast forward a couple days to Tuesday, September 30th, and I’m camping near Orick, CA at the Gold Bluffs Beach Campground. It’s in the Elk Prairie area of Redwoods National Park (where you’ll find elk just wandering around, and possibly blocking the dirt road leading you back to your campsite). While I spent a lot of my time trying to take time lapses on the beach, I did get a chance to hike a bit and take a few photos.

Nearby my campsite, there were hiking trails that allow you to hike through the tallest trees in the world, through green and lush landscapes (including an beautiful and aptly named area called Fern Canyon). Here is a photo from one of those hikes, a short 2 mile loop called Trillium Falls. Unfortunately, the water flow was a little low during this time of year, but it was really quite stunning watching the fall leaves fall then there was a strong enough gust of wind to blow through the trees.

I used an ND filter to make this a long exposure, and I would have loved to stack my polarized filter on as well to cut down on the glare off of the rocks and leaves (it really does make a difference), but at that moment, it was stuck screwed onto another filter and I spent a good 15 minutes trying to unstick it like it was working with a jar of spaghetti sauce. Anyway, this turned out pretty good without it, but you know, it could be better.

Polarizing Filter

Here’s another angle of the falls with a polarizing filter. Notice the reduced glare on the foliage. It definitely changes the dynamic of the image.

Oh… and here’s a 3 frame animated gif!

#52weekproject: Week 24: Moonset over the Pacific

Posted on November 24, 2014 by Justin Le

Taken on Tuesday, September 30, 2014, while camping at Gold Bluffs Beach Campground (near Orick, CA, in the Redwoods National Park).

This is one of the frames I took while attempting a timelapse of the milky way over the ocean. Using an iphone app called The Photographer’s Ephemeris, I was able to plan ahead and figure out where and when the moon would be setting. I took a walk down the beach from my campsite to where I had eaten breakfast on a log earlier that day. That spot was key since it gave me a place to hang out while I waited for my timelapse to run, and I thought would be foreground for a few pictures. The key to nice milky way shots is to have really dark and clear skies. Which means, being far away from any city lights or any light pollution, no moon, and low humidity. Fortunately (or unfortunately), the weather was pretty warm, and humid, so the Milky Way was not super bright, but it was definitely there. (Ideally, it’s best when the weather is colder and the atmosphere can’t hold much moisture, but then you have to deal with battery issues, and trying to stay warm, but I digress.)

I’m pretty happy with this photo, but would have liked to have spent more time there, since I only had a few hours to work with. (I was only up until around 2am since the following morning I needed to pack up and leave my campsite before 8am so I could drive 9 hours to Fresno to meet up with my brother and sister.)

Also, here’s a photo of me setting up this photo:

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