My First Time. . .with the Rokinon 14mm

I would like to begin by offering my apologies for going nearly 2 months since my last blog post. Between new baby, thanksgiving, travel, work, Christmas, and a new, yet to be disclosed development I have had virtually zero free time.  Rest assured, my resolution is to blog more often.  I'm shooting for a minimum of twice a month.  On to the show!

I mentioned a while back that I recently purchased the Rokinon 14mm lens. This is a funky lens. It is a lot of fun, but it is also quite difficult to figure out because it is a fully manual lens.  This post is a quasi review, but given that I am a fairly inexperienced amateur photographer, this is going to lack all of the techno mumbo-jumbo and comparisons.  This is, like, my opinion man, based on my short experience so far.

The biggest trick with this lens is to get the damn thing to focus.  It is really hard to do, especially when handheld.  The trick I have learned so far is to use Live View (the LCD screen) as opposed to the viewfinder.  Then zoom in as far as I can on something near the Hyperfocal Distance.  While this can be done while handheld, it is a bit more difficult than I originally thought it would be.

Another thing to note is the focus ring is very smooth, and by "smooth" I mean VERY SLOW. I feel like I turn the thing and turn it and turn it and it only barely registers a difference in focus.

The third reason focusing with this lens is a challenge is because the focal markers have no bearing on reality.  I find that about 90% of the time I am using this lens, I have the focal ring near the "infinity" side of things, even when shooting something 12 centimeters away.

The fourth thing to note about a full-manual lens; the camera has no idea what settings are being used. It doesn't really matter until you get the pictures into Lightroom and you have no idea what aperture you were using for a particular shot. Again, for my typical uses it doesn't matter too much, but sometimes it would be nice to know so I can learn how the lens behaves at different stops.

The final quirk regarding full manual settings is that there is no communication between the camera and the lens.  To provide context, when shooting my 24-105 I adjust the aperture through the dial on the camera. On the Rokinon, the aperture is adjusted via a dial on the lens. It is not a bad thing, but it is a little odd. Typically when looking either through the viewfinder you don't notice any difference in light when you adjust the aperture (this is not necessarily the case on live view, but it is a setting in you camera so YMMV). On the Rokinon, you notice it. As a fun exercise, I held the Rokinon up to the light and looked through it while adjusting the aperture ring, and yep, I could see the "iris" shrinking as I did so. I'm sure that this is nothing new to people from old school SLR/35mm shooting, but to those of us in the digital photography world. . .woah!

Alright, now that you have dealt with a wall of text, I'm sure you are curious, "how does the thing shoot?". The answer is, not too shabby.

I lost my (Rokinon) virginity with this picture

Aside from goofing around at home taking wide-angle, close up shots of Kyra, Tasha and Andrew, the first picture I took was actually unplanned.  Kyra and I decided to go look at a condo in Greenwood way back in November.  The unit itself was pretty shabby, small and run-down, ugh.  but it had a little deck off the west side of the building. I stepped outside and saw this pretty sunset.

If i haven't made it abundantly clear by now, time is something of which I do not have.  Which is OK. . .for now. However, once summer hits I'm out, but I digress. My time restrictions generally mean that I need to stick close to home so I end up looking around for fun places to shoot in/around the city. I was anxious to use it after first getting it and decided to bring it to work and get a sunset shot from the pier.

  Ok, ok.  It really isn't a very petty sunset picture, but it was kind of fun to take.  You see, the sunset was actually pretty meh but it looked OK if I under exposed the shot.  However, as we all know, underexposing means you lose most of your details.  So, I decided to take three shots and Photoshop the exposures together.


I took one picture, without me, exposed for the sunset. Then I took a second picture with me, tying to expose for everything else, but I didn't turn out too well so I took a third picture and exposed for me.

 


 At some point near Thanksgiving we were feeling a bit-o cabin fever-it had been storming for over a week and we finally had a sunny day so we decided to head to Golden Gardens to go for a walk.  Naturally I brought my camera.  This is actually the same day and location as the "Great Ball of Fire" picture from my Sunday, Sunset Sunday blog.  I wanted to get down and dirty so after the sun went down I crawled down some rocks and perched just above the Sound.  This was actually more precarious than you would think.  I was in Crocs, the rocks were very slippery, I was in a crouch and only had one hand with which to steady myself.  Honestly, I'm kind of "meh" about this shot.  There really isn't anything interesting going on and the rock, despite my best efforts, was drastically underexposed, but I took the picture and learned.

More details on how this was shot available in the other blog post.

Stack of ~18 4 Minute exposures
Each one f/2.8, ISO 100

 I had purchased a book on night/star photography shortly after getting the new camera.  I was exposed to night sky photography during my Manshower "aka the shitty backpack" (blog post to come. . .about half written).  I was excited when the forecast called for clear, cold skies.  I was even MORE excited when Jack called and asked me if I wanted to head up to Gold Creek near Snoqualmie Pass.  Since there is no Milky Way during the winter months I wanted to take my shot at star trails.  I set up the camera with my intervalometer and walked away for an hour.  After some post processing (blend mode "lighten" in Photoshop) boom, this is the result.

One of the best parts about this lens is how much fun it can be to just play around with randomly.  It's wide field of view allows you to get "wide" shots from very close.
For example, this picture was just us goofing off.  I was showing off the lens and simply held the camera above my head and took the shot. no thought beyond that. . and it turned out great!












Finally, what would any post be without a candid dog pic.

I guess, that I would conclude by saying if you were ever on the fence about buying this lens, just do it.  It is cheap and fun.  I will say, after the initial "excitement" wore off I found myself using this less and less.  I usually don't even carry it in my camera bag unless I think I will have a good use for it.  I'm sure that when summer comes that I will have ample good use for this great little lens.  Even more so. . .perhaps I should challenge myself.  I'm thinking of setting up a challenge where I only shoot with this lens for the next XXX amount of time/shoots.  Forcing myself to use this lens will only help me get better at using it and developing an eye for where it can be useful.

I think I will do that.  I hereby challenge myself to shoot this lens through to the end of the month. 

Sunday, Sunset Sunday

This past weekend was the first lazy Sunday that we have had in over two months which was rather fitting given that rather massive storm that rolled through Friday and Saturday.  By mid-day Sunday I was going rather stir crazy and wanted to get outside for a bit. Two things I really love about this time of year are 1) all that rain cleans up the air, and 2) early sunsets mean I can get outside, take some pictures and still get home in time for dinner.

Yesterday was the best of both worlds.  The storm that rolled through all last week did a fantastic job of cleaning the air, and Sunday was a beautiful day with an early sunset and enough clouds rolling in to make an interesting color.  The four of us packed up the car and went down to Golden Gardens. As soon as we got there the sun was nearing the clouds. I quickly got everything ready, went down near the water lined up the shot and within 5 minutes managed to get the best shot of the evening.

Goodness Gracious Great Ball of Fire
ISO100, f/11, 1/400 second

The sun went down pretty quickly after this so I consider myself lucky I got there in time.

Once I got "the shot" I figured I would kill some time playing around. I haven't taken a panoramic shot with this camera and figured I might as well try it out.  To add to the fun, I remember reading that for maximum resolution you should shoot panorama with the camera in portrait mode for a landscape shot and in landscape for a portrait shot. I like the shot, but the sky isn't as interesting as it was 10 minutes earlier, and I find it odd that it looks as if I am standing at a corner even though the sidewalk went straight from my direct left to my direct right. Looking at this makes me interested in trying to create those "tunnel" type panoramas I have seen a few times online.  Maybe I will try to figure out how to shoot/process one of those sometime soon.

Panorama of 11 shots taken in portrait mode.
Full resolution is 19,885 x 5,251 pixels

 Of course, I had to play with my new Rokinon 14mm while I had the chance.  I'm still trying to figure out the best uses for this lense ASIDE from astrophotography (something I have yet had the opportunity to do with this thing).  Two things I noticed from my previous attempt at using this lens: 1) it is difficult to focus, primarily because I never feel that I can get close enough to see enough detail to properly focus; and 2) because this lens has such a wide field of view, you really need something in the foreground to add interest to the shot. To get that "item of interest" I walked down to the water and set up right near a rock.  It was quite the precarious position as the rocks were slippery, I wasn't wearing the greatest of shoes, and I was carrying a camera around my neck.  I spent a few minutes down there and eventually got the shot below.

Composite of three exposures.

I had the damndest time trying to get the rock properly exposed, and still feel that it is quite under-exposed.  In fact, this shot is even a composite of three exposures, one for the sky, one for the water, and one, trying to expose for the rock. Even with the composite, the rock is underexposed. I probably could have gotten it if I was able to take a longer exposure, but there was no way I would be able to hold still long enough, I was slipping all over the place.

What I really want to do is get the shot I saw a few weeks ago from the bus while on the Aurora bridge.  While looking north as the sun was setting, I could see Mt Baker bathed orange reflected off the clouds.  I haven't seen anything like it the entire time I have lived here. It was awesome. I was pretty upset that I didn't have my camera with me, especially given that I brought my camera to work a few days earlier with the intent of taking sunset pictures. Oh well, I'm going to keep my eyes open for similar conditions in the future and figure out how the hell to get the shot.  Maybe I could find someone to let me in to or on top of the the UW tower on Brooklyn. Either that or maybe I can get to the top of the condo tower near there, or Hotel Decco. Regardless, next time I think conditions may be good for that shot, I'm going to find a way to take it.

Skyscrapers

For those of you who don't know, Kyra gave me a really awesome camera as a "push" present. The upshot is that I now have a really awesome photo setup.  The downside is, due to the timing of said gift, I don't get much time to go out, set-up, and take pictures.  This means that instead of heading out into the mountains to take epic pictures of mountains, stars, sunsets, and northern lights, that I have to stick closer to home.

This has lead me to start exploring urban photography, be it buildings, cityscapes, and urban parks.  My first foray into this world was the oh so well known "Kerry Park" shot of Seattle/Mount Rainier taken during the blood moon.



This opened up a whole new set of opportunities for me.  I realized that I could go out, play with my camera, take some pictures, and still be home in time for dinner. . . or something to that effect. This discovery lead me to what is perhaps my favorite picture to date, the Rizal Park shot. I saw an image on ChromeCast and really wanted to get a similar shot. It was an image taken of Seattle from somewhere south of the city.  It included traffic lights from I-5 swooshing through the city.

I spent a week "scouting" spots on Google street view that would give me the perspective I wanted.  I finally found some potential spots up near Rizal Park.  One Sunday evening, Kyra gave me a hall pass so I packed up the car and drove across town. The first thing I noticed upon arriving at Rizal Park is that it was one sketchy area. I really did not want to set up a couple thousand dollars worth of camera equipment and sit there alone for a few hours waiting for the appropriate lighting.

And now I wait.
Taken from my phone while waiting for the light

I hopped back in the car and drove around a bit.  A few hundred yards down the road I found an entrance to the off-leash dog park. Something told me to check it out, and I'm glad I did. I followed the path for a few hundred yards then noticed that there was a section of fence that had been removed. Not only that, but it happened to be right at the top of a good 15-20ft drop off so there was nothing between me and the view.  I set up the camera, the tripod, took a few test shots, and waited.


About an hour later, the blue hour began and I started shooting.  I wasn't really sure what I was doing, but I know I wanted the car trails so I needed a long exposure without overexposing. Additionally, I wanted to make sure the whole scene was in focus.  To accomplish that I needed to set the aperture at f/22 and let-er-rip.  I ended up with the RAW exposure below.

Zoom Zoom Seattle - RAW file (after cropping)
ISO400, 24mm, f/22, 60 seconds

 Honestly, I was quite impressed with the RAW shot, but wanted to lighten it up a bit, after playing around in lightroom for a little while I ended up with the final product as shown. The single biggest change that I noticed during post-processing was enabling the lens profile. If you flip between the two pictures, maybe you can see it.  To my eye, enabling the lens profile appears to "push" the middle back a bit and "flatten" the image. Anywho, here is the final product.  I really like it and am currently getting it printed on museum-wrapped canvas.

Zoom Zoom Seattle - final product
Specs in previous version, note the change from lens profile

Note, I'm still pretty new, and was even more so when this was taken.  I mentioned that I shot this at f/22 in order to a) keep everything in focus, and b) get a long enough exposure to get great car-trails. What I didn't know at the time was that shooting at high apertures reduces the sharpness of the image. I also didn't realize that you really don't need to shoot at f/22 in landscapes to keep everything in focus. In reality anything from f/9 to f/16 should keep everything in focus without loss of clarity.


Jack provided me with a few ideas on how to accomplish the aforementioned goals, but without loss of clarity.  It involves image stacking and I'll get into the details of that below. However, I forgot to mention a third goal, I wanted to accomplish goals 1 and 2 using a single RAW file so image stacking is kind of meh. Actually, now that I think about it, I think I may have a solution. . .neutral density filters. I can stop up, toss on a neutral density filter, and take the shot.  It may work, it may not, but I can try it.

I had fun with my first blue hour photography session and couldn't wait to get out and try another one, but from where?  I didn't want to repeat the same shot, but I still wanted something "Seattle". The city had recently opened a Giant Ferris Wheel along the water front and I really liked the idea of getting a shot of the Ferris wheel in front of the city skyline. After a few days of Google-foo, Nicole told me that Piers 62 and 63 were public access and had unobstructed views of the Sound and the City.  I took off from work an hour or so early and ran down to the pier to take a look for myself and take a quick test shot to see if I could fit the scene in the frame; everything looked good, I had the scene, now I just had to get down there.

The next morning I received a push notification from my Star Walk 2 app indicating that Venus, Mars, and Jupiter would be very close to each other in the next few days and that the best time to view them would be a few hours before sunrise. I thought this was perfect and called my friend Dan o see if he wanted to wake up very early on a Saturday morning to take some pictures of the city and planets.

The morning arrived, I picked up Dan around 5am and we headed downtown to the water front.  Venus, Mars and Jupiter were VERY visible so I figured this would be a great morning. As I mentioned earlier, Jack gave me the idea of taking multiple exposures, each with varying objectives, then combining them in Photoshop to create the final image.  I figured this would be a great time to try it. My goal was to get a blue hour shot of the skyline with and the planets.  To do this, the plan was to get three exposures, the first, exposed for the planets, the second for the city lights, and the third for blue hour.  The three exposures are below.

Exposed for Planets
ISO 100, f/9, 100 seconds

Exposed for Buildings / Sky
ISO100, f/6.3, 9 second

Exposed for City Lights / Sky
ISO100, f/14, 14 seconds

I took the three exposures, stuck them in PhotoShop and performed a variation of the Lighten blend mode, called "Screen".  According to the Adobe webpage, Screen looks at each channel's color information and multiplies the inverse of the blend and base colors. The result color is always a lighter color. . .The effect is similar to projecting multiple photographic slides on top of each other. the resulting picture, Morning Star, is below.

Morning Star
The three above, imported to Photoshop, blend mode set to "Screen"

After a successful "blue hour" I was feeling pretty good and figured that we should stay there throughout the morning and see if I could capture a good sunrise photo.  The difficulty with capturing any type of shot, sunrise, sunset, etc. is that if you expose for the sky, to get the pretty colors, then you underexpose the foreground; in this case the buildings.  If you expose for the buildings, then the sky gets washed out, or at a minimum, you loose the color detail.  So, I thought I would try another multiple exposure-blending. The two shots below were taken about 90 seconds apart, the first exposed for the sky, the second exposed for the buildings/foreground.

Da Buildings
ISO100, f/11, 1/8 second

Da Sky
ISO100, f/13, 1/20 second

The two shots below were taken about 90 seconds apart, the first exposed for the sky, the second exposed for the buildings/foreground. I imported these into Photoshop and tried all of the various auto-blend modes, but none of them worked out so I ended up doing it manually using layer masks. The result, Smoky Sunrise, is below.

Smoky Sunrise
The two above imported to Photoshop, manual blending

I hope you enjoyed reading about my first forays into cityscape photography.  I learned a lot over the few photoshoots Every time I go out, I learn a lot and have a lot of fun.  these were some of the more challenging post-processing shots so far. Additionally, they took the most time on a per-shot basis, but I enjoy it.  Given the new baby and the now rainy weather, I have the feeling that I'll be sticking close to home for a while.

Glass, Grass, and . . .

My parents came to visit a few weeks ago and my mom really wanted to go to the Chihully Glass Museum.  I looked it up and thought it would be a pretty neat opportunity to practice taking pictures in a very unique setting. The glass museum is nestled right next to the Space Needle and I was trying to figure out how to get some spiffy pictures, perhaps including the Needle itself, however, I didn't want it to seem too cliche as I find way too many shots of the Needle and don't find them very interesting.

My original thought was that we could head to the museum right around sunset and that would give us the opportunity to do some shots during the blue hour.  However, I read on the FAQ that they do not allow the use of tripods or monopods so that was a bit of a bummer, that and we had a busy day and I knew we would be hungry before sunset/blue moon. And I knew no one else would want to spend hours here waiting for the sunset.  So, I scoured Google Maps/Street View trying to look for a cool vantage point or cool picture.  You can even do a mini tour of the museum so I was clicking through rooms looking for something inspiring.  Unfortunately nothing struck so I was headed in without any real game plan.

As we toured the museum I felt kind of strange. Sure, there was all of this beautiful glass work and some of it was fun to photograph, but there were so many people in there and so many people with cameras that I felt a little out of place and overwhelmed.  Even so, I managed to snag a few pictures worth sharing.

Glass within Glass within Glass
ISO 1600, 1/80th second, f/4.0

The Glass Forest

ISO 1600, 1/10th second, f/4.0

Party Bowls
ISO 1600, 1/6th second, f/4.0

Glass Boat

ISO 3200, 1/25th second, f/4.0

Once we got outside things started to change. It was a bit chilly and a bit breezy so there weren't that many people outside.  That and there was just more room, and the light was better. . .well more familiar to me and and easier for to shoot. I was wandering around looking for some way to capture the space needle when I noticed that the sky looked rather nice. I turned west to try and capture some sunset/sky pictures, but the building was in the way and nothing turned out.

Swirled Reflections
ISO 200, 1/10th second, f/4.0

Sewing with 5 Needles
ISO 1000, 1/50th second f/4.0

Just then I looked down and noticed the rather large glass globes situated all over the place.  As I walked closer I realized that I could see the reflection of the Space Need in the ball.  Ah hah!! There was my shot, a great way to get a photo of the Space Needle and the glass art at the same

Two Big Balls and a Loooong Needle
ISO 800, 1/30th second, f/5.0

I spent the majority of the next hour wandering around outside looking for different glass objects from which to capture the reflection of the Space Needle.

Glass Nymph
ISO 800, 1/40th second f/5.6

The Units
ISO 800, 1/20th second, f/9.0

Oh, and I also found a pretty spiffy log too.

OhYeah, HI MOM AND DAD!! 

Boo!

Sorry for the delay between posts. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, taking care of a new baby takes most of my time; I actually work all day while at work, then when I get home, Kyra hands over Andrew so that she can finally take a break and do the things she wants to do. Andrew is still young (just turn two months today) so he doesn't really go to bed too much earlier than we do (if at all). When he does go to bed, Kyra and I are exhausted and barely have the energy to lie on the couch before going to bed ourselves.

But I digress. There was a huge full moon a few weeks ago, but I didn't really notice until I went to take out the trash on evening.  I walked outside and though "ohhh, that's cool".  I went back upstairs grabbed the camera and stood in the middle of my street taking shots of the moon. The idea was to bracket the moon inside a hole in some trees. However, I was trying to do this handheld while standing directly under a streetlight. . .it didn't work out, but it gave me an idea. Fortunately, Kyra was kind enough to let me go out for a little while, so I grabbed my camera and tripod and headed out to Woodland Park (which is just down the street).

Unfortunately, by some clouds moved in and I wasn't able to get a crisp picture of the moon.  Fortunately, the clouds created an eerie atmosphere.  I set up the camera in the parking lot, framed the moon between the split trunks of a tree, and fired away. I took a variety of shots and really liked the one below.

I finally got around to posting this around Halloween and thought it would be a fun idea to shop in a "scary face".  After searching for "evil round face" I found the perfect one, and wouldn't you know it, I didn't even have to re-size the face to make it fit.  So, enjoy. . .I'll try to post more as I have some from the Chihully Glass Museum and a few more from Carkeek Park.

 

Over the Sound and through Bainbridge, to (great) Grandmother's House We Go

It's hard to really get out and do things with a newborn! Over the past summer, Kyra and I used to go hiking or backpacking nearly every weekend.  Hell, we did Granite Mountain two weeks before Andrew was born (sorry, no pictures) and then did Annette Lake only three days before Kyra was born.

Then, came the baby, and the lack of sleep (oh lord, the lack of sleep). Going out with a newborn is tough and involves a lot more planning and flexibility than even I thought it would be. So, we really didn't do much for the first few weeks.  But we were getting cabin fever and had to get out.

We decided on Discovery Park because it is close, it has a fair amount of trails,I have never been there, and there is a lighthouse which I hoped would make for some interesting pictures. I had a goal - I wanted to grab a few shots of the lighthouse.  One with the sun "in" the lighthouse and maybe a few golden or blue hour shots.

• Baby? - Check
• Car Seat? - Check
• Baby Carrier? - Check
• Diaper Bag? - Check
• Tasha (Dog)? - Check
• Camera gear? - Check

Off we go!

I didn't know what to expect and I was pleasantly surprised.  The park is very well maintained with a great combination of open spaces and "forests".  The best part is that it is huge so it never felt very crowded--nothing like the Snow Lake trail.  Hell, for being in the city it was downright lonely.  I liked that.

Taken just inland of Sand Point Beach on the Olympic Coast (4th of July)
1/125 second f/2.8 ISO 125 (taken on my Lumix FZ1000)

I used to only like taking pictures of "big views".  You know, from a mountain peak or pass looking out across a large landscape (you will see plenty of these if/when I finally get around to publishing my Stevens to Snoqualmie story), but I have grown to appreciate other pictures, specifically ways of playing with light.  A fair amount of this new interest is owed to my good friend Jack, who has helped spur my photography interest and knowledge in several ways.  On our 4th of July trip to the Olympic Coast he taught me some things to look for when hiking through (what I thought was) a boring forest which resulted in one of my favorite all time pictures.

It was a very clear and bright day, which I'm learning means not-so-interesting pictures because there is not much color in the sky to serve as an interesting backdrop.  So, sadly none of my "big view" pictures turned out very well.  However, I was able to find a few interesting spots along the trail with the sun peaking through leaves or between trees and had a bit of fun playing with these.

Trail along Discovery Park in Seattle
1/60 second f/20 ISO 800

This first shot was hiking north along a bluff along a nicely shaded section of trail.  I had been keeping an eye out for something similar to my favorite Olympic Beach photo and this looked like a good spot.








I had red somewhere that using really high f-stops would result in star-burst type patterns.
My old Lumix FZ1000 only went to f/8 or f/9 on the high end so while it was great for taking landscape photos, I was never able to play with this effect.  So, I decided that for these "sun peaking" shots that I would stop it up to 20 and see what happened.  I liked it and in this situation it pulled off exactly what I was going for.

Trail along Discovery Park in Seattle
1/125 second f/11 ISO 800

We continued followed the trail as it veered west and dropped in elevation toward the Sound / Lighthouse.   As we dropped we entered a more heavily forested area with fairly tall and nicely spaced trees. Hoping to re-create the lovely Olympic Park shot, I stayed here for a while and took several shots.  I noticed a few things while standing
here.




There is a lot of contrast so if I would point the camera toward the sun everything else would be way underexposed.  If I pointed the camera at the trees or the ground, those would be exposed properly, but the sun and trees would be way over-exposed. I was having a tough time at getting a good exposure, and bracketing the shot really wouldn't work because I was handheld (and I'm not very good at blending layers in Photoshop as you will see below).  I was starting to get Frustrated then remembered Galen telling me that I can do an exposure lock by pressing the * button on the back of the camera.  Re-armed with this knowledge I took several shots exposing on different areas then pointing the camera at the sun and taking the shot.  Honestly, while I'm not too impressed with how it turned out, it was a fun learning exercise.

"Final" Lighthouse shot composed of 2 layered exposures

We made it do the lighthouse WELL before sunset.  I was pretty sure that we weren't going to be able to hang out until the sun went down (remember me saying going out with a newborn is difficult), so I was falling back on my idea of getting the sun "in" the lighthouse so it looked like the lighthouse was on.






Andrew had different plans.  While I was waiting for the sun to go down he managed to eat, twice, and poop. . .three times.  We were out of diapers and had a very unhappy baby. I was able to convince Kyra to give me 5 minutes so I could try taking multiple exposures and blending them in Photoshop (thanks Kyra!).

I took three exposures all at f/22, ISO 100. The first was to expose for the sun, the second for the foreground, and the third for the shadows.  In the end I only ended up using the first two.

RAW Shot exposed for the sun
1/100 second f/22 ISO 100

RAW Shot exposed for foreground
1/10 second f/22 ISO 100

Lessons Learned:

While taking and processing these pictures (RAW images below for anyone interested) I noticed a few interesting things about high f-stops.  The first is that they under-expose quite a bit you really need to lengthen the exposure time (couldn't do while handheld) or crank up the ISO which adds a bit of noise.  The second lesson is that you lose clarity/sharpness.  While that isn't too noticeable in these pictures, it was fairly noticeable in some photos that I didn't process, and can also be noticed in my yet-discussed SODO blue hour photo (to come). Also, in less-than-bright lights I ended up with a fair bit of camera shake if I didn't crank the ISO.

Exposure lock is a good tool if you are handheld and shooting in strongly contrasted lighting situations.

Luminosity masks are very helpful.There are a lot of extensions and I learned a bit about luminosity masks while trying to combine the lighthouse exposures.  The concept is pretty cool, and using luminosity masks is actually quite easy to do, but very difficult to do right and make it look good. I by no means claim I did it correctly, nor made it look good in my lighthouse shot, but it is a learning experience.  I am going to try similar shots in the future to practice.

RAW shot.
As you can see, the lower half is fairly under-exposed. It wasn't that big of a deal as I didn't really  want to capture the roots, I was more interested in the sun and the leaves. Post processing consisted of cropping and highlighting the image.

RAW shot.
Similar to the one above, even when playing with exposure lock I couldn't quite get enough light from the trees.
Additionally, even though this was f/11 instead of f/22, I still think that the sun starburst is a bit strong. Oh well
Post processing was cropping and highlighting.

Have to slip in a picture of Kyra (and Andrew, though you can't see him).
I love you Kyra!

My Not-So-Super Eclipse Experience

For those. . .not in the know, there was a super lunar eclipse on September 27th, 2015 (this past Sunday). I was pretty excited and thought it would be a great opportunity to test out the new camera that my wonderful wife, Kyra, got for me.  So I did some research and found this website which was tremendously helpful and gave me the awesome idea of doing a stacked shot (like the one below). The idea was to set up and take the shots from Kerry Park, one of the more famous picture spots in Seattle.

What I was TRYING to get. Photo credit: Fred Espenak http://www.MrEclipse.com 

Armed with this knowledge, I did all the calculations and prep work I could do at home. I printed out the exposure guidelines, I used the PlanIt for Photographers app on my phone to "preframe" the shot, and I tested out my camera, tripod, and intervalometer to make sure all of  my equipment worked.

Finally, the big day arrived.  The golden hour started around 6:15, moonrise was around 7:00, the blue hour began around 7:15 and the maximum eclipse was scheduled at 7:47. I knew it was going to be busy so I arrived around 5:30 to a pretty packed house, found a place to squeeze in, got everything set up, and waited.

I took a few shots of the city during the golden and blue hours, only one really turned out, but they were primarily to test the composition and to get the one good shot to use as a base layer for the image stack.

Blue Hour Seattle From Kerry Park: 60mm, 25 second exposure, f/22 ISO 100

At around 7:30, I realized that the moon was supposed to be up, but I couldn't see it.  I pulled out my trusty compass to verify the direction of the moon rise, set it to 90 degrees. . .and ended up staring directly into a building. A TALL building.  I double checked my app and found out that the moon wouldn't be be past/above the building at around 9:30, well past the eclipse.

Well, crap! There goes my idea.  I didn't want to just pack it in, so after thinking it over for a few minutes I figured that the best place to go would be West Seattle. I hopped into my car and raced across town, parked illegally at Salty's (sorry), grabbed my tripod and set up by the water.  The overall framing of the pictures wasn't that great as the moon was really pretty far South of the city, but at least I could fit it all in the frame.

I started by taking a few close-up shots, of which one turned out fairly nice.  I was looking for some way to frame the moon, but there really wasn't anything around. Yeah, that's the top of a very scraggly tree in the bottom right, and the glow is from the lights on Harbor Island. All in all, for a hurried drive across town to even see the damn moon, I'm not too upset.

The Moon from the parking lot of Salty's in West Seattle. 105mm, 4 second exposure, f/4.0, ISO 400

After going for a few close-up shots of the moon, I recomposed the shot in an effort to get Seattle and the moon at the same time and ended up taking several shots.  By this point, I was no longer thinking about shooting in constant intervals to stack, I was just playing with different aperture, ISO, and shutter speeds seeing what I could do.  After taking around 70 shots I ended up with about 4 that I thought were worth saving and post processing.

One of many shots that I thought turned out OK.  This is actually the backdrop to the entire stack.
24mm, 4 seconds, f/4.0, ISO 400

Another one. Yeah, I know that it is very underexposed, but I found I personally enjoyed how the city lights look when the rest is underexposed. 24mm, 10 seconds, f/8.0 ISO 400

24mm, 15 seconds, f/8.0, ISO 200

Very dark, but personally, I think this has the sharpest city lights.
24mm, 8 seconds, f/11.0, ISO 400

It was only after the fact, way after the fact (in fact?) that I realized I took enough photos to do some type of stack that would allow me to see the transition of the moon out of eclipse state.  So, I went back to the drawing board and reloaded all of the RAW files from the camera (when I reject photos I generally delete the RAW files as well to save space. If I reject a photo, I reject a photo).

I then filtered through these files for ones that showed the progression of the moon at the appropriate (enough) intervals.  Once identified, I exported those photos into Photoshop as layers and did the whole mask layers thing to make each moon appear.  For a first attempt, it turned out alright.  The biggest issue is that I was taking each of these photos with an eye on the city skyline more so than the moon and in some cases ended up with either a slightly over exposed moon, or the moon noticeably moving in the shot.  Oh well, better that I tried, had fun, and learned something than just give up when things didn't turn out as planned.

The final stack.  Not too shabby for an afterthought.  It was fun and I can't wait for another opportunity to try something like this again.

Lessons Learned:

1. When possible, SCOUT THE LOCATION BEFOREHAND!!!  This is especially true when dealing with incredibly rare events such as a super-blood-moon eclipse.  Had I gone out to Kerry park a day or two before the eclipse and watched the moon rise (or at a minimum pulled out my compass) I would have immediately known that the location would not work.  Unfortunately, due to new baby and wedding shenanigans I was unable to do this.
2. When you make a plan to take a specific type of shot, stick to that plan.  This is in reference to the moon-stacking shot.  I planned to do the stacking shot, then forgot about it when I drove across town and ended up with fewer exposures, and improperly exposed for the moon.  Had I stuck to the plan of a multiple-exposure shot then I would have captured the full eclipse, more moons, and each moon would look better.
3. Be flexible.  I know, I know.  This flies in the face of the second lesson, but it is an important one anyway.  I could have stayed at Kerry park all night and not gotten much of anything.  It was my willingness to leave that got me something at least.  However, it would have been better had I pre-picked an alternate location before hand. . .so perhaps the lesson should be
4. Have a backup plan for when things don't end up as planned. And, finally
5. Have fun and learn something.  After all, isn't this why anyone has a hobby, to have fun and learn a new skill.  If you keep getting upset and frustrated because things don't turn out perfectly, you will never do anything.  Mistakes are part of the learning process.  I can guarantee that I won't make these same mistakes the next super-blood-moon eclipse. . .in 18 years :)