Super Scudded Moon!!

I am still SO tired after my jolly jaunt last night that I am only just starting to attending to Blip! I can hardly keep my eyes open... I MUST get fitter!

BUT! I had to get a moon-shot and wanted to make the most of the now dissipating wild and windy weather (for May). It's supposed to all calm down now, from now on... (pigs might fly).

I only had to walk half a mile for this, so practically in the next room! Two and a half minute's exposure and I always really like the terrace of houses on the hill and often get it in Blips. The reddish colour is from the orange streetlamps bouncing off the low cloud.

Lens is Nikkor 10-24mm

View LARGE, for a streaky star, or two!

It would have been a better night to do what I did last night but the clear morning forecast probably won't provide the sunrise I got in yesterday's Blip. And it's done now, so there!

Thanks for all the comments on that; haven't replied to any yet, but they are all appreciated. Just got into the Spotlights, too, which is great!

As for that photo, I overexposed by one stop over meter as the strong sun overpowers the meter and would underexpose. Thus, I had to darken quite a lot, selectively, the sky and lighten the foreground. Many use HDR, I don't. It HAS been known for me to have a right old moan where HDR's leave a very unnatural bright foreground and garish, overpowering sky. Those are the extreme, I realise. Just for the record, and not because any one is right, or wrong, just for personal taste, how I did mine is how I like such images to be. Subtle detail in the shadows and a controlled but nice and deeply saturated colours too. Just so that you know!

Other bits:

I’m so glad that I finally got round to cleaning my camera sensor, a couple of days ago. Cloning out little spots in editing had become a time consuming pain and such show up especially well on big blue skies, such as in my wonderful morning out yesterday. My local camera shop charges £30 for a DX sensor clean and £50 for a FX one and as I cleaned both my DSLR’s, that saved me a cool £80...

...which went to a pair of Opticron 12x50 binoculars – I might know a fair bit about lenses but binoculars, no. Whilst out on my jaunts and actually being able to see what bird I am looking at, whilst it soars, it struck me that I should have a reasonable pair of “bins”. Yes, I could raise my long lens on camera – and do, but of course that is not ideal and often have a superwideangle on!

This model seemed to combine good magnification with light gathering capabilities and a known name. Until delivery, supposedly Friday, I really have no idea what they’ll be like. Anyone know anything about Opticron?

Should be able to catch up with you all over the next day or so...