http://photos.jamiethole.com/p25323871

Full Wolf Moon

This evening I was fortunate enough to witness a very BRIGHT full moon. This moon is referred to as the Full Wolf Moon.

The name comes from Native Americans. They would refer to the full moon as the Wolf Moon because wolf packs that would howell at the moon because of hunger.

I captured this with my tripod mounted Canon 5D Mark II. I used my 70-300mm IS USM at 300mm. The camera was on Manual mode. I had the aperture set on ƒ/20 and the shutter at 1/13th of a second. The ISO was set to low and I enabled the mirror lockup function.

It was late in the afternoon, so the sun was behind the lighthouse from my point of view. This made it difficult for me to get the lighthouse properly exposed without blowing out the sky. I decided this might be the perfect opportunity to try some HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography.

So, I set my camera to automatically bracket my exposures, and went to town taking photos.

The image below (and above) is comprised of three exposures (-2ev, 0ev, +2ev) and merged together using the new HDR Pro feature in Photoshop CS5. After merging the images together I saved the result as a 16bit TIFF and did my final processing in Camera RAW.

All in all, I’m very pleased with the results and excited to experiment with more HDR photography in the future.

St. Augustine Lighthouse - 3 Exposure HDR

St. Augustine Lighthouse - Single Exposure

Although I like the HDR image just the way it was, I thought I’d see how it’d look desaturated a bit.

Here’s the result of running the image through PhotoTools 2.6, using the built-in “Mocha Java” preset.

St. Augustine Lighthouse - 3 Exposure HDR with Filters Applied

Regardless, I soldiered on and headed down the stairs to snap a few photos of the ocean. As usual, the surf wasn’t very exciting today so I thought I’d get a couple photos of the “new” Jacksonville Beach Pier.

Here are my favorites.

All photos taken with the trusty Canon 5D MkII and 24-105mm ƒ/4 L IS USM zoom lens. EXIF data available on my photos page.

Emergency Lane

Jacksonville Beach Pier

Unda Da Pier

I landed at O’Hare around 7:30 so my first night was kinda of a photography bust, but the next morning was spectacular. It was in the mid sixties with beautiful blue skies and not a cloud in sight. I decided to venture out and walk to Millennium Park.

Cloud Gate A.K.A. "The Bean"

View of Downtown from the BP Bridge

After my 12 mile walk I met up with my buddy and took a trip to the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) to view the city from the Skydeck. I think we were there on the perfect day, at the perfect time. I had wanted to see the city during the afternoon but I’m certain the view is better in the evening when the city comes to life.

The Willis Tower

View from the Skydeck

After the Skydeck we headed to Navy Pier to grab dinner. Of course I couldn’t go to Navy Pier and not ride the ferris wheel. Here’s a shot of downtown from atop the 150 foot ferris wheel.

Chicago from the Ferris Wheel

The weather on my third night was equally as beautiful and I snapped this shot on my way back to the hotel. This was a completely random photo taken while walking near the Chicago River. Didn’t even realize I took this until after I downloaded the photos. It’s quickly become one of my favorite photographs.

Moonlight on the Chicago River

Ornamental

Nova

Duchess the Dog

Coast Guard Rescue Helicopter

Epcot - Spaceship Earth