Archive for ‘November, 2008’

The lights

Not the Christmas tree lights…I did go back to the village this evening, but I was not having much luck getting the lights – there was lots of car traffic, street spots – it seemed like it was one of those “you have to be there” kind of things and/or beyond my current photography skills to capture.

So…you will need to use your imagination…Bigfork Village is a pretty little town of one long block of shops and art galleries, tucked between Swan Hill, Swan River and Bigfork Bay of Flathead Lake. Every level of every storefront is draped with garland made from local pine boughs. Trees decorated with red ribbons are attached to anything that stands upright. Boughs, bushes, fences…are strung with colored lights. Store windows are lit with their wares as well as Christmas lights, pine cones, and other festive decorations.

It is now a Christmas village and on this night (and afternoon after the decorating) the merchants offer snacks and drinks. Visitors and residents stroll the main street along to the sound of Christmas music broadcast in the street.

Main street in Bigfork is Electric Avenue – named for the electric plant on the Swan River at the base of the Wild Mile – situated above the bridge that leads into the village from the south.

The lights – they were beautiful and the night above is clear and filled with stars. It is the start of the holiday season and here in Bigfork, Montana, it is colorful and full of light.

Bigfork, Montana – Call to Arms!

D Day (Decoration Day) 2008 – Bigfork Elves turned out this morning in response to the Secretary of Decorating’s Call to Active Duty!

The Village was decorated from top to bottom – everything upright gets a beribboned tree attached to it.

All hands – large and small – man the machines…

The Village entrances are guarded from normal traffic…

Friends meet… – my friend and last year’s house and Bob caretaker, Sara and her friend Bill

Work and talk, talk and work…

The “Beverage Babes” dispense beverages to hard working elves…

Left is Gretchen Gates of Eva Gates Preserves and right is Donna Lawson of The Jug Tree Liquor Store.

…what is in the unmarked container????

At the north end of the village is the Bigfork Inn:

This morning, the Inn was host to a continental breakfast for the elves. The Inn also keeps a fire pit going so that cold elves can gather to warm up.

Next to the Inn, the Village Christmas tree is being decorated – Yes, we say CHRISTMAS here in Bigfork, MT!

Tonight, as always on Decorating Day Night, is the tree lighting ceremony and the village art walk. If I overcome my wimpiness for venturing out away from my fire, after dark, there might be photos of that…

Waning moon


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…the rest of this post is exposure notes…

All photos from Canon S3 IS Powershot (point and shoot) – manual mode, Aperture 7.1, ISO 100, Auto White Balance, Auto focus (spot metering) – the shutter speeds I tried are noted below each photo. Above have been cropped but otherwise are straight out of the camera. No tripod – hand held using continuous shooting mode.

Aside from being just fun and I love the moon, I have been frustrated in the past with my ability to get the kind of shot I wanted of the moon. And although I have a tripod, sometimes I just do not feel like getting it out and doing the whole setup – especially at 4:30 a.m. when the moon is in the perfect spot…

The S3 is a “point and shoot”, but it is a very fully featured “point and shoot”, with the whole gamut of manual and semi-manual features available as well as fully and semi-automatic settings. I have been shooting in mostly Manual and Aperture Priority for the last 6 months, courtesy of various online tutorials as well as an excellent book on Exposure by Bryan Peterson and generally a lot of trial and error and re-reading. It is fun when the stuff finally makes sense and I get what I intended/hoped to get!

I found the moon technique fascinating because it is somewhat backwards to what I thought and in fact to what the camera light meter thinks. Ivory Hut (see link below) explains that moonlight is actually reflected sunlight and so the exposure must be similar to what you use shooting in sunlight…IF you are intending to get a clear moon with surface texture (vs an exposure of trees, clouds with backlight from the moon). So….although my camera meter on full auto set an aperture of 2.7 (wide open), a shutter speed of 1/8 (pretty slow) and an ISO of 800, that exposure results in the moon being a white blob. Closing down the aperture (7.1, i.e. squinting), lowering the ISO (“film speed), increasing the shutter speed, using spot metering for focusing directly on the moon results in the detailed exposure. Continuous shooting mode is the anti-tripod trick … with the shutter speed faster, continuous shooting (I hold my breath and try to brace on a tree or something) helps ensure that at least one or two shots in the stream are in focus. The moon was so bright this morning that at the shutter speeds above, nearly all the shots were focused.

The entire explanation from Ivory Hut in a guest post at Pioneer Woman titled: Shoot for the Moon is worth a look if you are interested in this kind of shot. Ivory Hut uses the Canon Powershot S5 which is one model newer than mine, but the primary difference is a faster (and newer) processor and higher ISO – they have the same lens…the point, she is also using a “point and shoot”. This technique is potentially doable on cameras that allow you to adjust aperture, shutter speed, ISO and shooting mode (continuous).