As the moon sets

[rwfarnell]

Taken this morning as the full moon was setting in the Gulf of Mexico. Notice how the moon turns from an off yellow to a reddish color as the sun is coming up in the east.

Location: Pier 60, Clearwater Beach, Fl.
Taken with a Pentax K5, 18-55mm, tripod.

Thanks,

C&C is welcomed

[Dave Humphries]

Taken this morning as the full moon was setting in the Gulf of Mexico.

Hi Rob,

Nice pictures

Notice how the moon turns from an off yellow to a reddish color as the sun is coming up in the east.

Does it also look like that to the eye?

I wonder if both eye (and camera, if on Auto White Balance) are being (at least partially) fooled by the surrounding ambient colour temperature changing? Just a thought

Cheers,

[Dizzy]

Hi Rob,

The first pic seems to almost have a rainbow effect as the building and pier lights reflect off the water..not sure if it was desired, but I like it.

Another reason that the Moon changed color was because it got lower on the horizon, and you were then seeing it through a massive amount of atmosphere. When they are above us, we see the stars and Moon though the atmosphere vertically, but when it drops to that level we see it though the atmosphere horizontally, and at those lower angles we may be looking through 100x (or more) atmosphere. The humidity plus the added air pollution causes the Moon's appearance to shift towards the red spectrum. This same effect is what causes stars and planets near the horizon to "twinkle" at night.

Regardless of the science of "why", I think it adds a cool dimension to the image. Thanks for sharing the photo's!

Mike

[manthos]

Hi Rob,

Amazing colours, particularly in the last one. I have the same question as Dave though. Did they look like in your photos when you saw them?

[Stinky]

All are great. I like the third on with the moon and the pier light on the water. Also the pier is cool how is just sticks out in the water. Great job!!

[Shadowman]

Very nice, blue is such a tranquil color and the lights glowing on the water add to the mystique.

[rwfarnell]

Thanks for the comments.

When taking the earlier morning shots I was using the Tungsten Lamp setting for the white balance. I like the blues and softness it gives the pictures. Here is the same picture taken with the white balance set on Automatic.



As the morning became lighter I changed from the Tungsten lamp to the Daylight white balance for this last one.



Thanks again, your comments mean a lot to me.
Rob

[Wirefox]

Rob, if you are starting to 'see' images like these i think you owe it to yourself to shoot raw. I think the red moon shot has great potential and I much prefer the effect of the first version realistic or not.

[Donald]

I agree with what I take Steve's meaning to be.

Call it 'Red Moon' and be proud of putting your name to it. This is your representation of the reality of the scene. It's not pretending to be a faithful reproduction of the scene at the time of the capture. It's a bold image. And, in my view, it's a very, very good image.

[rwfarnell]

I do have them in raw, I’m just not real comfortable working with it yet or I should say I don’t know everything the program can do and how to do it.

[Bobobird]

Excellent shots.
We tend to get deep amber rather then red most of the time when the moon is low but have seen red moons now and then.

[manthos]

Hi Rob,

I think that my reply was not well put. Donald's comment made me realize that. I think the 3rd one from your original post is wonderful and I don't care whether it's a realistic presentation of the scenery or not. I meant to say that it would be really unique if you also saw that too.

[speedneeder]

Hi Rob,
I used to live in Clearwater
Good to see you on here - I need to work on some night photos myself.
I like the second one - interesting view of the pier!

[wommby]

Hi Rob,

I like all of them. I love taking shots of jetties at night. Good work, love the colors
I am in Australia and the moon was huge here last night. I am going to see if I can get anything tonight, but it might be too late for the full moon.

Deb