Southwest Portugal - moonscapes

[Paulo Bizarro]

A few days ago I went out at night, under full moon, to shoot one of my favourite locations. These are some of the results of long exposures of around 15 minutes each.

The weather was nice at 3 am... some mist and no wind, full moon, could not see the stars.

Shot with Canon 6D and Zeiss 21 ZE lens.

Regards.

[francois]

Good thing that you got out in the middle of the night! It was well worth it and I like the results.

[Bob_B]

+1 Very beautiful and ethereal images. I also admire your dedication to waking (staying up?) to 3AM and beyond.

Cheers,

    Bob

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Too bright.

[sdwilsonsct]

Nice work, Paulo. I wold be tempted to add some night feeling back into these, perhaps by simply dragging down a global curve.

[Paulo Bizarro]

Too bright.

This is what the place looked like under a full moon, and one of the reasons for me to shoot it. I decided not to reduce brightness, but thanks for the comment anyway...

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Oh, please!

Unless, of course, you are a wolverine

[Iluvmycam]

Pretty pix!

[SZRitter]

This is what the place looked like under a full moon, and one of the reasons for me to shoot it. I decided not to reduce brightness, but thanks for the comment anyway...

I feel there is two ways to approach this answer...

1. I bet about 1EV less of exposure would be a bit better and set a nicer mood. But that is just me.

2. The part that really bugs me is how bright it is toward the left side of every image. While I think the exposure over the sea is about right, it seems to me that if you had used an ND-grad going to the left with about 1 to 2 stops less light, the image would balance better. Am I right in guessing there is a city/town off to the left?

EDIT: Looking again, I would just adjust the brightness of the sky leading to the left. It just feels way too bright on that left side. The cliffs themselves feel fine.

[Rajan Parrikar]

The third image is beautiful.

[sdwilsonsct]

...Am I right in guessing there is a city/town off to the left?

I would guess that light is coming from the moon, scattering in the atmosphere.

[SZRitter]

I would guess that light is coming from the moon, scattering in the atmosphere.

Quite possible. When I wrote that, I didn't think of the moon as a directional point light source, which it is.

[churly]

Very interesting shots.  I never would have thought about it in this setting but I agree that a grad ND to push back the direct moonlight might have given better light balance.  You've tempted me to give this a try.
Chuck

[Paulo Bizarro]

It's been too long since I went to the beach on a full moon, but I don't recall it being bright enough to see colours just by moonlight.

I can assure you it was like that, it was so bright I needed no flash light to set up the camera, and my shadow was so strong I had to avoid including it in some shots.

[Paulo Bizarro]

I feel there is two ways to approach this answer...

1. I bet about 1EV less of exposure would be a bit better and set a nicer mood. But that is just me.

2. The part that really bugs me is how bright it is toward the left side of every image. While I think the exposure over the sea is about right, it seems to me that if you had used an ND-grad going to the left with about 1 to 2 stops less light, the image would balance better. Am I right in guessing there is a city/town off to the left?

EDIT: Looking again, I would just adjust the brightness of the sky leading to the left. It just feels way too bright on that left side. The cliffs themselves feel fine.

1. Another interpretation, and valid, I prefer it my way.

2. The moon was on the left side, no city or town there. I opted to leave the brightness as it was, after all, that was the reason I was there at 3am, to get this "bright moon-mood".

[Paulo Bizarro]

Oh, please!

Unless, of course, you are a wolverine

No need to "please" anyone...

This is what 15 or 20 minutes exposure under a full moon will look like in that place, coupled with a slight to moderate mist/humidity that helped in reflecting some of the light into the scene.

I couldn't care less if you believe it or not.

Kind regards.

[SZRitter]

I should add, your shots have inspired me to consider doing this myself. Thinking I may load up my E-M5 and Bronica and shoot something by moonlight... Just haven't figured out what...

[Lonnie Utah]

It's been too long since I went to the beach on a full moon, but I don't recall it being bright enough to see colours just by moonlight.

Come to the deepest dark desert in Utah on a cloudless night with a full moon. You'd be surprised what you can see.

[Lonnie Utah]

Do you see bright orange rocks by moonlight?

Look, being a biologist training, and having taken human and animal anatomy and physiology courses at the undergraduate and graduate level, I know where you are going with this.  You're tying to make the case that since rod cells are primarily responsible for our night vision and aren't sensitive to color that we should never be able to see any color at night. Under most circumstances, your are absolutely correct. However, what I'm telling you, based on personal experience from being in those environments, is that there are places and conditions where the moon is bright enough for eyes to discern shades of color after the sun sets. This is particularly true in the iron oxide sandstone deserts of the SW United States, because close to 70% of our cone cells are sensitive to red light. Given that reds and oranges are the predominate colors in the SW landscape, it makes sense that under some conditions that those color could be perceived by our eyes.  Bryce canyon is one place that comes to mind without any hesitation. FWIW, on those types of night I frequently find myself hiking without a headlamp, as I don't find in necessary. Unless you were there, under the exact conditions you cannot dispute it. You can only theorize about it. As someone once said, "There is a difference in knowing where the path goes, and walking down the path."

But none of that matters. The OP is using a tool that is superior to the human eye to capture a scene in an artistic way. This happens all the time in photography. Whether it's a hyper fast shutter speed to stop the motion of a bullet or a super slow shutter speed to blur motion we utilize the abilities of the camera and it's sensor (or film) to transform what our eyes can perceive the way mother nature evolved them. As an artistic endeavor, I have zero problem with how the OP deiced to visualize the scene. Was that the way it appears to the naked eye? No. Do I give a crap? No.

 

[Lonnie Utah]

And furthermore, for the folks that are saying these are too bright, so what? If you look at the histograms of all of these, none of them have blown highlights, and all of them have most of the information on the left side of the histogram. So certainly, these are exposed correctly and are not OVER exposed (which is what I would call "too bright"). Personally, I find those responses somewhat closed minded artistically, from those that simply expect an image to be presented a certain way, because it's a night time image.  But please show the the "rule" where it says that these images should conform to what we THINK they should conform too. The OP had the vision to shoot these this way, and to me, they are refreshingly different.

These images are akin to daytime images of this location with the primary difference is that they are taken under reflected light rather than direct light (moonlight is reflected sunlight). This gives more contrast with less sever shadows than direct light. I also don't think the the OP was trying to deceive anyone and the viewer misunderstood the image, that's their own fault. The OP clearly stated in the thread title that these were "Moonscapes".