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Halo
1st PlaceHalo
Mousie


Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Challenge: Night Shot (Classic Editing)
Camera: Canon PowerShot S40
Location: Sunnyvale, CA
Date: Mar 24, 2002
Aperture: 6
ISO: 50
Shutter: 8 Seconds
Date Uploaded: Mar 24, 2002

Alas, I'm not entirely satisfied with this submission!

Statistics
Place: 1 out of 56
Avg (all users): 7.2583
Avg (commenters): 7.8333
Avg (participants): 6.7234
Avg (non-participants): 7.5000
Views since voting: 6091
Votes: 151
Comments: 25
Favorites: 36 (view)


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AuthorThread
04/03/2002 03:51:00 PM
I've gotten a couple requests to describe how I made this picture, so here goes!

The subject itself is the moon, of course, and a tree in the parking lot right outside of my office. The tree was dimly lit by a single sodium lamp to it's left, slightly to the rear, with just enough light to catch some good detail using a long exposure. I set up my tripod very close to the gound and framed my shot at about a 45 degree angle upwards, paying careful attention to where the moon whould shine through the branches. This was tricky using my tiny little LCD, I may have snapped a shot and zoomed in on it to get more detail to see if it looked good where it was, I don't really remember but I'll do that sort of thing pretty frequently. I almost always use exposure bracketing of +/- 2/3 and an exposure compensation of -2/3, I find that I get better results if I force the camera to take a couple darker exposures than it would normally choose, these settings give me three images, one at normal exposure, one at -2/3, and one at -1 1/3. This time I chose not to and did everything manually so I could have more control over the result. I set my aperture to 6 so I 'd have a reasonable depth of field (to keep both the tree and moon in focus) and so I could use a relatively slow shutter speed, I wanted the thin clouds in front of the moon to have a chance to move and get that soft, slightly streaked look. Using the in-camera metering, I adjusted my shutter speed until the exposure read -2/3 stop when I half-pressed the shutter release. It was about right at 8 seconds. I took a picture, checked if I liked it (which I did) and just to be safe, shot a picture at 10 seconds, and at 6 seconds to manually bracket the shot. I may have shot a few more at different shutter speeds, you can't go wrong taking extra shots!

Once I got home, I went through the pictures and looked for the one that had the best moon. The moon is just a little blown out in the one I finally decided on, but I used it because the halo of clouds was exposed just right, it had good detail and color. I then cropped the image to get a nice balance of tree to sky.

Using the levels adjustment, I darkened the blacks considerably to get the sky really dark, basically dropping everything ouside of the halo to black. As it was shot you could actually see the shadow side of the branches against the slightly lighter clouds in the sky, but I didn't like that so I got rid of it to make the scene more dramatic. Once I had the blacks where I wanted them, I increased the brightness of the mid-tones to make the branches and halo pop. I usually go back and forth a bit at this point, tweaking the blacks, mid-tones, and whites, since they're all interrelated. I'll pump the mid-tones and darken the blacks for more contrast, or ease-off on the blacks and darken the mid-tones for a little less contrast... I spend 5-10 minutes doing this on every picture I process! This time I avoided touching the whites at all, since it would have only blown out the moon even more than it already was.

Once the levels were where I wanted them I sharpened the full size version, saved it off, undid the sharpening, scaled it to 640X480, sharpened it at the new size, and saved the version I submitted... almost.

The next day I went back to look at the pictures I'd shot the night before, decided that the sky was still a bit light for my tastes, and started from scratch, trying more contrasty levels settings. After the same process I finally had the one I was happy with.

And that is how I made Halo!
04/01/2002 01:39:00 AM
Oh, you didn't really win; we just bumped you up for April Fools Day!
04/01/2002 12:09:00 AM
Wow, I only submitted this one because my mom liked it and I thought it was pretty safe! Thank you!!!
 Comments Made During the Challenge
03/31/2002 01:14:00 PM
beautiful lighting on the branches; need more space around the moon and it's halo to really show it off
03/31/2002 12:26:00 PM
Nice idea. Very spooky - I love it.
03/31/2002 01:51:00 AM
this is an amazing exposure, the light reflecting on the tree is great. Truly a Fantastic photo. good work
03/30/2002 11:42:00 PM
Nice one!
03/30/2002 05:28:00 PM
One of my favorite of the challenge..eerie and spiritual..
03/30/2002 01:44:00 AM
evil! (but I mean that in a really cool, wicked, haunting kind of way!)
03/29/2002 04:35:00 PM
good shot
03/29/2002 03:42:00 PM
Love this! I wonder what it would have looked like if you had moved over to the right a little, thereby putting the moon in the upper left third of the picture? Great shot.
03/28/2002 02:24:00 PM
great shot and contrasting object.
03/28/2002 12:17:00 PM
halo is awesome!
03/28/2002 06:51:00 AM
love it.
03/27/2002 06:12:00 PM
Good job on what to me would be a challenge. Thanks for shareing with us.
03/26/2002 01:00:00 PM
Nicely framed shot!
03/26/2002 12:04:00 PM
I love this shot. What more can I say.
03/25/2002 07:00:00 PM
The colors in this picture are outstanding.
03/25/2002 05:42:00 PM
Great Shot, I was trying for a shot like this one, but I couldn't get the moon to come out very good. I like the lighting on the branches. Beautiful.
03/25/2002 04:31:00 PM
You got it baby, what a great photo! Lovely color, a nice evocative photo, very mysterious, like from a Sherlock Holmes era movie or something, hound of the Baskervilles. Strong composition and lighting. Excellent job capturing the moon. The large branch on the left and the diagonal one do great job of anchoring the whole photo in space. (rule of thirds, leading lines etc.)
03/25/2002 02:26:00 PM
Crazy lighting going on here. Not sure exactly how you worked it out -- but it's got a nice glow to it.
03/25/2002 12:07:00 PM
Shadows work wonders in the branches. The blue and grey in the moon halo are a teriffic contrast to the sepia tones in the branches. Beautiful! I'd hang it on my wall!
03/25/2002 11:02:00 AM
The branches are almost too distracting. I like the moon halo idea though.
03/25/2002 10:38:00 AM
I like this photo. It has such a spooky feel to it. Good job!
03/25/2002 08:22:00 AM
Amazing juxtapositioning of Gold and White light, Beautiful Composition.


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