The Moon

Earth's natural satellite can do a lot for a photographer. It can stand model, it can enhance a picture through its presence, and it can even serve as light source: About one minute exposure time at f/2 will give a well exposed photo of a landscape lit by the full moon, on ISO 100 film.


Meet Mr.Moon

This photo was made by coupling a reflex camera body to an amateur telescope built by Roberto Castillo. The focal length was around 2 meter, at an aperture of roughly f/16. Exposure time was 1/15th of a second, on ISO 100 film. After all, the moon is nothing else than a sunlit ball of relatively dark rock and dust! You can expose it as that.


Midnight sun

Well, actually it's the early morning moon. The sun was helping by providing front light through a mist layer.


Diamond ring

After all, a solar eclipse is nothing else than the fully backlit moon! I travelled 4000 km to get a chance at photographing a total solar eclipse. There was another photographer near to my chosen site. He set up a camera with autowinder, and laughed at my attempt to shoot the diamond ring, which lasts only for one or two seconds, with my hand-cranked camera. He pressed his shutter 15 seconds before onset of totality, and let his camera run like crazy. Two seconds before totality his camera had spooled through all the film. And then the diamond ring appeared! I shot just one photo of it. He shot 36 trashcan photos and pulled his hairs out.
The second diamond ring, at the end of totality, caught us both off guard. It came so suddenly!


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