Ansel Adams' Moonshots
Moonrise, Hernandez, N.M. - The Grab Shot
ŠThe Trustees of the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust
Image served by Masters
of Photography Prints available on their web site.
While a grab shot with an 8X10 view camera may sound like an impossibility,
when you read what Adams said about this shot you must concede that it
was, in reality, the ultimate grab shot. On page 127 of his classic book
The Negative, (Little, Brown & Co. 1981) he writes: "I
came across this extraoridnary scene when returning to Santa Fe from an
excursion to the Chama Valley. The sun was edging a fast moving bank of
clouds in the west. I set up the 8X10 camera as fast as I could while
visualizing the image. I had to exchange the front and back elements of
my Cooke lens, attaching the 23-inch element in front with a glass G filter
(#15) behind the shutter. I focused and composed the image rapidly at
full aperture, but knew that because of the focus-shift of the single
lens component, I had to advance the focus about 3/32 inch when I used
f/32. These mechanical processes and the visualization were intuitively
accomplished. Then to my dismay I could not find my exposure meter! I
remembered that the liminance of the moon at that position was about 250
candles-per-square-foot, placing this luminance on Zone VII, I could calculate
that 60 candles-per-square-foot would fall on Zone V. With a film
of ASA 64, the exposure would be 1/60 second at f/8, or about one second
at f/32, the exposure given.
Earlier in the same book, on the topic of estimating exposure he says;
"As I reversed the film holder to make a second negative, I saw that
the light had faded from the crosses! I am reminded of Pasteur's comment
that 'chance favors the prepared mind.'"
It kind of makes you feel bad about blaming that missed grab shot on
a too-slow computer-driven autofocus system doesn't it!
Moon and Half Dome, Yosemite Valley - The Set Shot
ŠThe Trustees of the
Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust
Image served by Masters
of Photography Prints available on their web site.
In Chapter 3 of The Camera, (Little, Brown & Co. 1980) Adams
wrote: "I made this photograph using a Hasselblad camera with
250mm Sonnar lens and an orange filter. With the camera secured to a tripod,
I waited until the moon rose to a favorable position for a balanced composition.
I made several exposures, at intervals of about one minute, and the movement
of the moon between exposures gives each a somewhat different aesthetic
effect. The moon moves surprisingly fast throught the sky, and exposure
times must be quite short to secure a sharp image when using a long lens".
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