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Moon Shot - HELP!

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Hi DIPics,

Thanks for the "ol' rule" tip. I am trying to learn more and have not heard of that. Would you happen to have any links, book recomendation for more of the rules I can try and learn from.

This place is an amazing resource, but always looking for more info. Thanks again.

SCM
http://picasaweb.google.com/smathias1
 
imqqmi said:
Beautiful shot!

You are probably right. A moon on the horizon is bigger though and
I doubt camera glass could show the difference. I could be wrong..

My shot has about the same settings as yours (but not nearly as
good though:(. mine was f/11, 100 iso (-2 stops compared to yours)
but at 1/20 ss (+2 stops). Also using remote, MLU.
Click to expand...
You did a very nice job as well! It is an optical illusion - though a moon will look very much larger on the horizon it is due to the fact that there are foreground objects (buildings, mountains, trees...) that make it appear relatively large. If you measure it's size on the horizon and at the zenith they will be exactly the same. When it is close to the horizon light travels through much more air and the disturbances are likely to give a much less sharp photo. Strangely enough, on a crisp cold night when the air looks crystal clear you are likely to have more distortion as heat from the earth creates "waves" in the atmosphere; on such nights the stars will appear to twinkle more as well due to the same effect.

My EXIF settings are a bit misleading because the 1.4x teleconverter really makes the f11 more like f16 or f18.

Thanks for commenting and sharing your moon pic!
 
Even though they don't seem to apply in our modern digital age, Ansel Adams wrote three books that will teach you more about the science of photography than just about any others. They are:

The Camera
The Negative
The Print

If you can't afford all three, I would get The Negative. The man forgot more about photography than most of us ever learned and he didn't forget much. :)

DIPics
 
Thanks! I will look into those. I have a few books on the way from Amazon, and will check those AA books out.

I actually saw some of his original photos in New Orleans years ago in a gallery, and was stunned at how small they were, lol.

I mean, I don't know what I was expecting, guess I had just always seen the posters and stuff, and the original shocked me. I was a treat at the time to see them. And they were breathtaking.

Thanks again for sharing.

--
SCM
http://picasaweb.google.com/smathias1
 
--



My two cents. Just took this handheld on 70-300 tamron with 400d. 640th sec at f6.4. 100ISO Its not much in comaprison to the lovely shots taken by others. I used evaluative metering in manual and just bracketed down. This wasn't the best exposed but it was the best for shake!! I was possibly going to get a teleconverter but since I just got scammed on ebay that will have to wait!! i do like those shots of the moon with the craters in relief, awesome!!

If we learn from our mistakes, I am getting a fantastic education!
 
Argh!

You cought me with two illustions at the same time! ;). Thanks for the info, I never realized. I always thought it to be an atmospheric effect, as many others apparently. I'll try it out someday when the sky clears and the moon is up.
regards
clint75 said:
imqqmi said:
Beautiful shot!

You are probably right. A moon on the horizon is bigger though and
I doubt camera glass could show the difference. I could be wrong..

My shot has about the same settings as yours (but not nearly as
good though:(. mine was f/11, 100 iso (-2 stops compared to yours)
but at 1/20 ss (+2 stops). Also using remote, MLU.
Click to expand...
You did a very nice job as well! It is an optical illusion - though
a moon will look very much larger on the horizon it is due to the
fact that there are foreground objects (buildings, mountains,
trees...) that make it appear relatively large. If you measure it's
size on the horizon and at the zenith they will be exactly the
same. When it is close to the horizon light travels through much
more air and the disturbances are likely to give a much less sharp
photo. Strangely enough, on a crisp cold night when the air looks
crystal clear you are likely to have more distortion as heat from
the earth creates "waves" in the atmosphere; on such nights the
stars will appear to twinkle more as well due to the same effect.

My EXIF settings are a bit misleading because the 1.4x
teleconverter really makes the f11 more like f16 or f18.

Thanks for commenting and sharing your moon pic!
Click to expand...
 
I can corroberate its an optical illusion. I took a picture of a massive moon on the horizon and one the same night high up, a lot smaller. I merged the two pictures as a gif animation (I deleted it, unfortuanely) That did a clock wipe between the images, they were taken on the same camera etc and there was absolutely no diffence in size despite it looking really big on the horizon and normal up above. I am still confused about that because, if I can see it, why doens't the camera???

http://picasaweb.google.com/hugbunny612/CanonShots

This is another shot taken on a T90 before the days of PP. I did a multi exposure, wide angle on the power station and zoom 800mm on the moon
--
If we learn from our mistakes, I am getting a fantastic education!
 
Although it is definitely an illusion, exactly why is a bit of a mystery and no completley adequate explanation exists. There is a discussion of the phenomena at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/bigmoon_000105.html . Logically, you can imagine that the size would be the same since the distance from the earth doesn't change from moonrise to moonset; but it is certainly a powerful and convincing illusion. On occasion the moon will actually be closer to the Earth in its orbit and it will truly be larger. I remember that it had an extraordinarily close approach a few years ago and it looked a lot bigger even high in the sky.
hugbunny said:
I can corroberate its an optical illusion. I took a picture of a
massive moon on the horizon and one the same night high up, a lot
smaller. I merged the two pictures as a gif animation (I deleted
it, unfortuanely) That did a clock wipe between the images, they
were taken on the same camera etc and there was absolutely no
diffence in size despite it looking really big on the horizon and
normal up above. I am still confused about that because, if I can
see it, why doens't the camera???
Click to expand...
 
first of all you will need as long lens as possible , for moon shot i used mine 400mm f5.6 + 2.0tc.

exposure is very important , its bes set manualy.

use your lens at sharpest aperture , mine shot was done wide open at iso 800 and handhald with some suport at 1/200...

this is actualy bigger than 100% crop (so i upsize it):



all best
kristian
http://www.pbase.com/skynesher
 
Truely amazing shot, esp. handholding an effective 1280mm lense! Surely you've rested the lens end on something right? a beanbig or an edge of a wall? At that focal length, does the moon fill the frame?
Thanks for sharing!
 
thankx ,

yes i used the wall for support and even with that and continius shooting i was getting shaky shots , but one in 50 come out sharp enought.

tried with one more tc but it was too much , i gess stady tripod is must.

moon didnt fill the frame , even not with 1.4+2.0 tc but it was close..

posted shot is about 130% crop so crop from full size is smaller...(and sharper of course)..

all best
kristian
imqqmi said:
Truely amazing shot, esp. handholding an effective 1280mm lense!
Surely you've rested the lens end on something right? a beanbig or
an edge of a wall? At that focal length, does the moon fill the
frame?
Thanks for sharing!
Click to expand...
 
First, thanks to OP for starting the thread, and to everyone else for the great information! Just took a few shots myself following some of the advice, and IMHO this isn't not too bad for a first attempt...

ISO-200, f/8, 1/400s, 300mm.
Used a tripod, delayed shutter release, MLU on, AF.
Sharpened, cropped and converted from RAW with DPP (not resized).



However, I found if I sharpen too much, a lot of black pixels appear - is this a result of noise or something else? They're visible as grey spots in the picture above, if you zoom in a bit. I didn't expect so much noise at ISO-200.

Paul.
----------
Kit on profile.
 
Good shot Paul! It looks round, something I don't see often in moonshots.

It looks as though you've underexposed a bit. Sharpening in dpp is not the best. It uses a threshold value under which it will not sharpen so that smooth surfaces still are smooth without a lot of noise. If some noise or surface texture comes above this threshold, you start to see noise speckles here and there. If you pixelpeep, it will look awefull. I use photoshop with some custom actions to sharpen my photo's using masks.
Getting the exposure right is most important though.
tall_paul said:
First, thanks to OP for starting the thread, and to everyone else
for the great information! Just took a few shots myself following
some of the advice, and IMHO this isn't not too bad for a first
attempt...

ISO-200, f/8, 1/400s, 300mm.
Used a tripod, delayed shutter release, MLU on, AF.
Sharpened, cropped and converted from RAW with DPP (not resized).



However, I found if I sharpen too much, a lot of black pixels
appear - is this a result of noise or something else? They're
visible as grey spots in the picture above, if you zoom in a bit.
I didn't expect so much noise at ISO-200.

Paul.
----------
Kit on profile.
Click to expand...
 
imqqmi said:
Good shot Paul! It looks round, something I don't see often in
moonshots.
Click to expand...
Not quite a full moon - there is still some shadow on the lower right, which highlights the craters on that 'edge'. Incidentally, you'll notice my picture is rotated 180 degrees compared to OP's result due to us being in different hemispheres.
imqqmi said:
It looks as though you've underexposed a bit.
Click to expand...
I pulled the brightness down a bit in DPP, as some of the detail looked blown - perhaps I brought it down too much?
imqqmi said:
Sharpening in dpp is
not the best. It uses a threshold value under which it will not
sharpen so that smooth surfaces still are smooth without a lot of
noise. If some noise or surface texture comes above this threshold,
you start to see noise speckles here and there. If you pixelpeep,
it will look awefull.
Click to expand...
Sure does!
imqqmi said:
I use photoshop with some custom actions to
sharpen my photo's using masks.
Getting the exposure right is most important though.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the feedback - I've not done any PP outside RIT and DPP yet, will have to give it a try.
Paul.
----------
Kit on profile.
 
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