GIANT MOON ON MONO LAKE #2 - 6 MAY 2012 Moon and Road - Lee Vining, California, File # 1216696 Link To Original Image Here's the shot from this morning. I scouted this site yesterday before dinner and even shooting last night's moon-rise. I'm not sure what attracted me to this location. I knew the moon was going to be in this location and I hoped it would sort of line up. I was pleasantly surprised how well it all came together. The extra elements like the moon-light reflection off the road and the dramatic snow capped mountains were all unanticipated. I got more than I thought. Yes, I rode my bike out here. For those curious, yes it does get cold at night in California's high desert. At least there wasn't frost on my bike like there was yesterday. (Was that already only a day ago?) By the time I left town, it was 32 deg. When I showed up at this site, it was 24. When I finally packed up and rode out, it had dropped to 18 deg! No wonder my fingers didn't have any feeling in them. That's all in Fahrenheit, for my international friends. The most difficult part of this shot was getting the exposure to keep the moon from blowing out into a gigantic white blob. It's a smaller white blob but at still retained some detail in the foreground. I also shot this with my new Nikon 24mm tilt-shift lens. I bought it to take advantage of the huge sensor of the D800 I have on order and haven't received. The goal was to make pano's shooting fewer frames--saves on computer storage and processing costs. Even though this was with my D3, the image is very detailed. That lens is sharp. Cheers Tom

NightMoon