With many commitments outside of photography the chances to get out are few and far between. My plan is to scout out as many local locations as possible that I can nip too when the conditions are looking good.
With a full moon imminent and some high pressure forecasted I set out after work one Friday night with a mate to brave the freezing conditions to try and get a shot of the rising full moon.
We set up by the smaller circle at the eastern side of the field. Conditions were good but intermittent cloud kept moving in and covering the moon which made getting clean exposures almost impossible.
After trying a few start trail shots, I realised how tricky it is to get a good shot. You need low light pollution, clear skies, good battery life and some good foreground interest to silhouette against the trails. I had none of those things.
My get out of jail card arrived when I noticed a mist forming in the valley beyond the stones. I though if I could balance out the bright moonlit sky using a ND Grad I could get a good exposure of the stones. It seems weird to use these filters at night but it definitely helped to balance the exposure.
I played around with exposure times. When they were too long the moon moved too far and blurred too much. My filters needed defrosting after every exposure, every piece of exposed glass was covered in ice crystals after around 90 seconds.
I ended up at f8 to maximise image quality, and exposed for around 2 minutes at ISO 400. I used a 0.6 ND grad to hold back the moonlit sky and a tripod and remote release to keep it all steady.
I like this image because it conveys just how spooky this place is. Half way through one exposure my mate was sure he saw something move behind one of the stones. We left pretty soon after that!
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