Full Moon risen

On a night when I was plagued with computer problems, this was the only shot I walked away with.

Shot this with my 5D MkII on 10" Newtonian.

Mt Warning sunset

Had some spectacular sunsets down here at Salt this week. This was the view from our balcony the other afternoon. I really like the way the salt spray or haze gives depth to the shot between the hills/mountains.

Normally I'd shoot landscapes with a tripod and a wide angle lens, but this was shot hand-held with a 135mm lens.

Fingal Head landscapes

Down at Salt for a holiday. Having some great weather. While we're down here I wanted to take the opportunity to shoot some landscapes at Fingal Head. I knew there was this cool rock formation, but hadn't been there before.

Walked out at 3.30-4am on rocks in the dark to leave myself enough time to scope the place out, get set up, and catch sunrise. A rock rolled under me and I sprained a finger, bruised my arm and put my back out. Still. It was worth it. :D

I had to use a couple of filters over the lens to get these shots to look this way "in camera".

I used a 3 stop neutral density filter over the whole lens to cut down the light, which meant a slower shutter speed, which meant I got that nice, smooth ocean look.

I also used a 3 stop reverse graduated neutral density filter, which cuts down the light on the brighter sky, but not the ocean. Just so the overall exposure looks right.

You can kind of achieve some of the effects above with Photoshop, but with the filters you can get it pretty much right in camera, which is a much more betterer way of doing it. A bit more purist. Unlike my english.

Highly recommend checking out the full size version of this panorama: