366 Days of 2012, Day 244 - Blue Moon

This is the last blue moon we will experience for the next 3 years.

I first tried to capture this amazing image in a single frame but the dynamic range was too wide and the white flare from the bright moon out into the clouds for the long exposure simply blew out the entire image making the image difficult to use in a normal hdr process.

The second problem I had with the clouds was that they were moving very fast and finally just to make matters worse the moon was moving in the frame as well.

In the end I decided on a bit of dark room license and decided to create the image I experienced in post. This composite of two images taken moments apart was made by combining the images using a layer mask rather than a simple hdr process.

Perhaps it's a bit surreal but this is the blue moon I experienced.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 244 - Blue Moon'. 1/80s+1/3s f/6.3 ISO-160 200mm composite