Another Icon: Lower Yosemite Falls, during Lunar Moonbow

[Brian Wong]

EOS 40D, 16-35/2.8 @16mm, cable release, tripod
10-20 sec, f/3.2, ISO 1600, bracketed exposure

Another Icon: Lower Yosemite Falls, during Lunar Moonbow

Photographed last weekend, ~9:30 PM. during full moon rise.

Layer masks manually blended bracketed exposure.
This was my first experience to see this amazing phoneme ... it was wet (misty) and drew quite a large crowd!

Thank you for looking, and your tips for improvement is always appreciated.

[Leroy Laverman]

Very cool shot. Almost too bright for me. Looks like a daytime shot (except for the stars in the sky). Would like to see this sometime in person.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Brian,
These are really cool and you don't see them too often. I agree with Leroy as to the brightness........but I do know that at a full moon.......this is what you get! I'd look at possibly cropping right side.....as these are your only distractions. Nicely done overall,
Roman

[Robert Amoruso]

Brian,

Going to give you some conflicting recommendations. Overall I like it - not too bright for me. As a matter of fact I recommend that you increase the brightness of the trees on the right in lieu of Roman's suggestion to balance the overall tonality out. I love the look of the rocks on the bottom, the rainbow and the water. Excellent technique with the blending - it looks almost surreal but not in an HDR sort of way.

I have been there and really appreciate this image of it.

[Paul Pagano]

This is a really neat image. I might be tempted to sharpen it a bit more for the rocks to 'pop' and then add some contrast and a little bit of flash. Really it's nice as is but seems like it could somehow be more dramatic as the experience itself was surely quite dramatic.

[Brian Wong]

Brian,

Going to give you some conflicting recommendations. Overall I like it - not too bright for me. As a matter of fact I recommend that you increase the brightness of the trees on the right in lieu of Roman's suggestion to balance the overall tonality out. I love the look of the rocks on the bottom, the rainbow and the water. Excellent technique with the blending - it looks almost surreal but not in an HDR sort of way.

I have been there and really appreciate this image of it.

Thanks for all the great ideas, and for the encouragement!

I believe I can get the lower rocks to "pop" a little more Paul. I can't wait to give it a try!

I agree that the dark fuzzy tree on the right was a big problem. With my other frames (taken at various locations), the tree was out of the way ... however, the other moonbows were not a full arch that was symetrical or level with the horizon. Just different, but I will try different compositions.

Thanks for the suggestions ... I will work on both darker and lighter versions Leroy & Roman, plus try to see if I can balance out the overall tonality Robert.

Thank you for the encouragement Robert, I actually thought this session was going to be a total bust. I had to keep wiping the mist, and water drops off the lens between each exposure. It was very frustrating! So you can say that I am more than mildly thrilled that you guys accept this one!

I will get back later with possible variations to see if I can improve, plus I don't mind seeing the ideas that you guys can come up with. Thanks again.

[Brian Wong]

I tried out the various options that were suggested. I decided that this repost version looked the most dramatic, and had the most depth.

Robert, when I tried to lighten the tree on the right, I felt the motion blur on the pine needles (from the long exposure) became more of a distraction.

In this repost, I used selective multiply to darken, and l like the even more surreal feel. Added more selective saturation that seems to help the depth. I also cropped slightly from the right to eliminate the bright pine cones. The right tree was slightly brightened:) Robert. Lastly, I tweaked the Moonbow to see if it could be emphasized.

What do you think?

[Paul Pagano]

I really like the repost. The shot looks more like a night shot and also has that 'pop' I was thinking of in the rock area. I like it!

[Leroy Laverman]

Nice edit. The second version - definitely more surreal. How does this mesh with your memory of the scene? Just curious as I've only seen this in the daytime.

[Brian Wong]

Nice edit. The second version - definitely more surreal. How does this mesh with your memory of the scene? Just curious as I've only seen this in the daytime.

Thank you all!

Hi Leroy!

The viewing platform are is very dark, but as during daylight hours, Yosemite's granite is very, very bright. The moon was raising behind right shoulder, which added to the granite reflection brightness. To the naked eye, the moonbow was a white arc ... with the colors barely visible. I was, and still am amazed how much information a digital camera can capture!

You may still be able to see a partial moonbow this month, and next month (not a full moon so predicted to be fainter). There is plenty of water this year, plus some luck with a cloudless night. I was also surprised at the crowds in Yosemite ... so early in the year.

I made plenty of mistakes ... the biggest one was that I could not focus in the dark! What do you guys do? I was thinking of prefocusing during the daylight, and taping down the lens for the next time.

[John Cooper]

This is very cool Brian - I've never seen anything like this before. Well done, but I like Robert's idea of evening up the tonality of the dark trees on the right.
I must admit I prefer the more subtle tones of the FG rocks and rainbow in the original post!!

[Leroy Laverman]

I've never tried to focus in the dark, but I've heard of folks bringing one of those mega flashlights to focus with. Might be tough with a bunch of other folks trying to take photos at the same time. Maybe the distance marks would help? Wondering if others have a take on this.

EDIT: Roman reminded me where I've seen this discussed before. http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=5683 Thanks Roman.