Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

A couple of days ago I noticed the lighting on the Sierra's just before sunset as approaching storm clouds from the west completely shaded the foothills. The first shot was taken with a 500mm lens and shows the crystal range above lake Tahoe. The pointy Peak on the right side is Pyramid Peak ~56 miles away. The next two shots are of the same area taken with a 2X teleconverter to get a 1000mm focal length. The forth shot is of Round Top Mountain ~70miles away (More atmospheric blurring is noticeable in this shot do to the distance). Since the Moon was also out and not yet obscured by the coming storm, I took a shot of the Moon at 1000mm (This is the only of these shots that was cropped). Since the moon was fairly high up in the sky we are looking though less air on the moon photo than the photos of the mountains, making the lunar shot a crisper image so I could crop it and still have a good image. In fact if you zoom in on the lunar shot you can see a couple of mountain peaks inside the crater Copernicus (Large crater left of center in the photo). All comments, suggestions and questions are welcome.

500mm shot of the Crystal Range

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1000mm shot of Pyramid peak.

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1000mm shot centered on Reds peak

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1000mm shot of Round Top Mountain

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1000mm shot of the Moon (cropped shot)

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rambler Loc: Masssachusetts

Wow that moon shot has great detail and like the deep blue background

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

Thanks for the comment. The sun was just setting when I took the photo so sky wasn't very dark and I slightly under exposed the image not burnout lunar detail (about 1/3 stop under exposed). I was also using a circular polarizer which also darkened the sky a bit more. This gave the dark blue background which I also like.

UTMike Loc: South Jordan, UT

Beautiful set!

HardwareGuy

Well done, nice shots.
Curious where you took these from.
We backpacked to Round Top in early October after an earlier dusting. There are multiple feet up there now.

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

I took these photos from my backyard in Grass Valley Ca. (~2500 ft elevation)

HardwareGuy

Interesting how similar the view of Pyramid Peak is from my vantage point further south near Jackson.

Earnest Botello Loc: Hockley, Texas

Good set, Ballard, your moon capture is great.

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

Your comment got me curious about the symmetry of Pyramid Peak. So used Google earth to see the mountain profile from different directions and indeed it presents a similar profile from most directions (particularly on the top which I expect is why it was named Pyramid Peak). Thanks for the comment.

Dr.Nikon Loc: Honolulu Hawaii

Ballard .., I’m a native CALIF ..used to live at Lake Tahoe .....my Aunt and Uncle used to live in Grass Valley .., I love the area ....I can relate to your shots .. I especially like the moon ...

bbradford Loc: Wake Forest NC

Love the moon

Photocraig

As DeWitt Jones, a sometimes Nat Geo Photographer, and quotable all around guy, would say: "Turn Around!!!!! Often the Alpen glow reflecting off the snow makes a better photo than the sunset itself. He's the photographer for those golden glowing fly fishing ads for Dewars Scotch a few decades ago.

My view of Mt. Rose would give me those colors when I lived in Truckee and looked East.

Thanks for these,
C

DJphoto Loc: SF Bay Area

Nice set!