Day: July 3, 2012

When I went out about 9:30 to take my flag down, I looked up and in the southeast sky, just above my neighbor’s rooftop, the full moon loomed. Since I missed the last full moon which was the Super Moon, and since I haven’t yet taken a full moon photo with my D800, I got my tripod out, set my camera to timed shutter release and took several shots. Despite all my care with trying to keep the camera still, I think the long, heavy 28-300mm lens and the clunk of the mirror when the shutter releases, still resulted in a bit of a camera shake. These shots are not as tack sharp as some of the moon shots I’ve previously taken with my D90 and 70-300mm lens. So tomorrow night, I may try to take some photos of the slightly less full moon with the camera set to the “mirror up position” to see if I can eliminate or at least reduce the camera shake.

In the first shot I used the Sunny 16 settings: ISO 100, f/16. 1/100 and as I look at that shot, the moon actually has a greenish tinge, at least on my monitor. With slower shutter speeds, the moon brightened and became silvery. Here are two shots, the first at 1/100, the green cheese moon, and the second, at 1/25, the silvery moon. Both shots are severely cropped.

Peridot is the August birthstone and when I was born, I was given a baby ring with a green peridot gem set into a tiny gold ring. I know next to nothing about gemstones and all I know about peridot is that it is green. The ring is marked 10K and the metal is very thin so it is not an expensive ring, and the stone looks suspiciously like colored glass. When I was about twelve, I asked my mother if I could have the ring resized because I wanted to wear it. A small piece of gold was added and I wore it on the baby finger of my right hand. The stone is badly scratched and a chunk of it broke out when I hit my hand against the edge of the desk after reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance one morning at Junior High School. But I still keep the ring in its original cute little hinged plastic ring box which seems to have held up better than the ring for more than 65 years.

I took this photo on my kitchen table and I used a small aperture because I wanted a deep depth of field. I tried using a custom white balance but the color was not at all accurate. When I switched to auto white balance, the color was perfect.

Focal Length 300mm
ISO 100
f/16
1 second
Auto WB
SOOC