Author Archives: GAR

Photographer’s Choice – Mike Acquesta

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Moonlight Reflection in Upstate New York

Mike Acquesta - Seneca Lake Moonlight

Mike Acquesta - Seneca Lake Moonlight

Mike grew up in the Finger Lakes region of NY State. In the early morning of Oct 11, 2011, while vacationing in the area, he captured the above scene from the east side of Seneca Lake. He describes it as follows:

I positioned the camera so that the moon light reflection on the lake cut directly between the two docks. The reflection points to the opposite shore and towards the moon. The moon did a wonderful job of under lighting the clouds. When first looking at the picture, one immediately notices the bright streak of light extending up at an angle. As the eye passes through the portal created by the decks, I think you start noticing other aspects of the shot, including the deck silhouettes, the suspended boat, then the opposite shore. Finally the moon comes into view with the bottom lit clouds. I applied a minor touch-up in Camera Raw – exposure boosted ever so slightly, and that was it.

His camera was a Canon 40D set on manual exposure with a Canon EF-S 10-22mm wide-angle zoom lens, set at 22mm, aperture f/4.5, shutter 25 seconds, tripod mounted.

Photographer’s Choice – Polly Terriberry

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A Magnificent Oak captured in the Infrared Spectrum

Polly Terriberry - Oak Tree in Fauquier County, Virginia

Polly Terriberry - Oak Tree in Fauquier County, Virginia

A standard DSLR has a filter mounted in front of the sensor that blocks the light in the infrared spectrum wavelength longer than that of visible light. It’s possible to replace this blocking filter with a different filter that allows photography in the infrared spectrum which is what Polly had done to a Nikon D70. It should be pointed out that once this change is made, the camera is no longer suitable for normal photography.
Polly had driven pass the oak tree above many times, thinking that it should be photographed. Finally she and a couple of photographer friends decided to meet at the site and take their different approaches to working with the tree. She chose a 28-80mm lens set to its widest angle with an aperture of f/11 and a shutter speed of 1/125 and an ISO of 200. In post processing, she dialed the clarity setting to a minus 100 to obtain the soft, dreamy look in the final image. The result is a totally different and dramatic look at a somewhat ordinary scene.