Sometimes you plan, and then get lucky in spite of it. Went to find the "darkest" spot reasonably close to the house, and managed to get this shot off.

Jupiter/Saturn conjunction, Winter Solstice 2020. So called "Christmas Star".

Jiminy Cricket would want you to "make a wish upon a star". Guessing a lot of us are having similar wishes this year.

2020 has been one for the record book. Don't know about you, but I'm ready to close that book.

Wishing you and yours a blessed holiday season wherever this may find you, and all the best for a safe and happy New Year.

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Canon 6D mkII, Canon 50mm f1.4 lens.

I was too, on the apparent moon movement. But I'm at a pretty low latitude (19 deg N), and twilight comes and goes pretty quick at these latitudes. Lower cusp of the sun can hit the horizon and be completely below it in 60-90 seconds.

I've been messing around with rasing the ISO in other situations, but have had issues with noise on previous outings, so wanted to keep it low. And the long exposure was a bit intentional. That "bay" is notorious for chop because of wind exposure. It's really rare for it to be even reasonably flat, and I really wanted to try to get that silky look on it.

Most people wouldn't likely notice it, but to get the reflection of the trees in front of the mangroves was a score to my mind. So this was maybe a once a year opportunity, and as noted in my reply to Linda, Mossies were almost unbearable, so ended up cutting the session shorter than I would have liked.

Thanks for the input

Doesn't really bother me. I posed the query rhetorically to see if it was a "critical" issue in general. Still trying to figure this hobby out. Generally I process a lot less than these last two posts, but these two just seems to lend themselves to taking some "artistic" license.

I tend to PP to what I like, and what appears pleasing to me, but I'm also cognizant that we're not of the same cloth, and try to keep an open mind when it comes to those varied tastes.

I'll probably be printing and sending some to family and friends as gifts, so feedback has soe merit.

Thanks for the response

Nope...that is what it was. The damn mosquitos were horrendous...i forgot to spray before I walked down, so ended up setting things up and running around (away) and just coming back to the camera long enough to activate the shutter. Paying for it on my ankles today...

I "might" replace the sky in some photos, but as I noted in my last post, I would never do that with anything I ever took here. We have lots of high humidity, haze and clouds, so you have to be patient, but at times, the sun/moon-rises/sets can be spectacular. And the locals would know if you doctored it. Not going there...:)

Might be an artifact from the post work, but not sky replacement. May also be the reflection off the water behind the little key. The land in the distance is maybe five miles away, so at that low angle, the reflection off the water had long way to work, and may be contributing to that. That would be my guess.

This was probably end of nautical twilight, bordering on full dark. > 70-90 minutes past sunset. The fore lighting on the trees is likely the lighting from the condo complex I was in front of. It's may be 100 yards from the seawall I was on.

Sometimes you just get lucky...

Thanks for looking...

Last post was the moon setting to the west early last Sunday morning. This one is it rising in the east a day or two later.

Pretty long exposure. I'm reasonably happy with it other than the moon trail though the cloud. Tried to clean it up a couple different ways but just seem to make it worse. Is it bothersome, or not really worth messing with?

Still trying to develop a style.

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Was puzzled by your comment so went back this afternoon to dig into it a little closer. One of these images is the unprocessed/uncropped jpeg of the original raw file in the original post. The other is an image taken +/-1 minute later, with the only difference being a 13s exposure rather than 6s. That's why the boat is so fuzzy in the second one.

You can see in the later photo, a lot of the foreground clouds have dissipated. Guessing they were just on the verge of that.

God forbid anyone would replace the sky for any kind of Cayman astronomical set. That would be tantamount to sacrilege in my opinion. I see people post these on FB with the saturation and vibrance cranked all the way up, and those just make me sad...

And then a cropped image of one of my original intents for going out this morning.

Thanks to all for looking and commenting.

Unprocessed

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+/-1 minute later

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Think the ones that look like that are on the very fringe of those clouds, and they were very thin. 6 sec exposure, so could be the light was able to penetrate enough to be picked up by the sensor. It was still very dark. I never saw them on the live view screen while on the beach. Had a Lee reverse gradient ND filter mounted. I know...an ND filter an hour before sunrise? Think that may be why the upper sky turned out as well as it did.

Honestly, it was more luck than skill...it was the best one of just a few out of 15-20 that turned out decent. Most of the rest were up at 20-30 second exposures, and even though they were exposed OK, that long the caused too much movement in both the clouds and moon to be useable.

A little different take this morning. I decided to get up early and go see if I could get the moon setting instead of rising like I usually do. The stars were a pleasant surprise when I got home. Couldn't see them on the camera while I was shooting...

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For anyone still watching this topic...

I ran across this tonight:

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Reddish_Egret/media-browser-overview/70690151

What say you?

I didn't want raise the ISO any more, so slowing down was the option. Thin I already had the aperature open all the way. I use ON1 for pp, and already worked on thes. If there's a way to get more out of it, I haven't figured it out yet. Tried not to cook these too much...

Thanks

A combination of late afternoon and "operator in training". Still pretty new to the camera/lens combo, but did learn a lot that weekend

Several of them cropped at 600mm and ISO 1600 to get a decent shutter speed.

Thanks

I think this is a Great Egret? Little Cayman (Island) a couple of weekends ago.

Trying to work out an appealing post processing style, so any comments and/or constructive criticism would be greatly welcomed.

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The weather has been so messed up between rain and haze the last couple of months, been a little tough to snag a decent sunset. First shot was just after the sun went down, and I thought it was going to be another dud...had actually put the camera away to head out. Mosquitos were out looking for dinner...and I really wasn't up for being on the menu.

Girls were still trading stories, and about 15 minutes later things just lit up. A little added in post, but not very much. It really was that vibrant. Hadn't had my 50mm 1.4 prime out in a while. Think I need to take it out for a walk more often.

Cayman Sunset Beverage~Local Cafe



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Sorry... Wasn't clear. It is the RF24-105 f4 L. The adapter is for all of the EF lenses I already have.

My query isn't relevant to the R/RP. It's been well established that the adapted EF lenses (even third party) work on those. Tamron has officially indicated that for quite a long list of their EF lenses.

But the R5/R6 with IBIS are different animals. I've done a bit more "research" since I posted this, and seems like even many of the Canon EF lenses with IS are a bit hit and miss in terms of the IBIS+IS. Found an article that commented about the difference in communication speed capacity between the camera and lens, and that the RF are much faster than the EF. So even if they are both "working", sounds like they may not be working "together".

Being a bit of a technonerd, that makes some sense to me.

Guess I can be a guinea pig. Just need to hit the "place order" button on an R6 with a 24-105 f4 L and an adapter. Would like to get the control adapter, but they aren't to be had right now...

It will have to ship to Miami, get on a plane and clear customs here, so likely be 2-3 weeks till I get it. I'll mess with it and come back to post what develops...

Thanks