dianaschnuth

[Taken 22 Sept 2010 | 13sec @ f/3.5 | 18mm | ISO 200]

I spent 45 minutes with my Nikon D50 and tripod in my front yard, shooting the moon (as it were). Trying out all the tricks I’d read and settings I thought I knew: using the “Sunny 16” rule to capture a crisp image of the full moon and all that. Finally, after peering at my previews and not knowing if I actually got a decent image of the moon itself, I dialed the aperture back to wide-open and took a single shot in my normal, narrow-depth-of-field style before turning to go back inside.

A moment after I picked up the camera and tripod and took a couple steps toward the front door, the noise reduction algorithm finished doing its magic and showed me a preview of what I’d just captured — the image pictured above.

Dammit, I thought, now I have to go back and take some more like that! I turned back around and set back up, but only got one more shot composed and taken before the neighbor’s dog started barking. I realized at that point that the mojo was gone, anyway, and that it was time to wrap up and call it an evening.

Seems to be how all my intentional photo shoots go: the final shot is usually the best. Does that mean I know when to quit, or that I quit just when things are getting good…?