Hello: Back to Photography after a 25 year break.

Thank you Erik, The clone brush is a very powerful tool, you've inspired me to try it, which I have been doing.

bolador said:

Try about ƒ3 or ƒ4 and 1/2000th second and spot focus.

Click to expand...

I spent an hour or so last night trying this out. I've never taken moon shots before so this is totally new territory to me. I Set the camera up in the back doorway on a tripod a neighbour has lent me. Thankfully I live in a very low light pollution area. Yes, I know I don't need a tripod but with the camera fixed I can then take time adjusting the settings. I used your advice as a starting point. Most of the photos that came out best were at F3.5 1/1000th. Also, with the tripod I was able to try out manual focus, and I found that the AF system had problems getting a sharp focus. It's a real pain manual focusing on this camera - but worth it I found.

So, here's my results. I did try PP but nothing I did made positive enhancements. Also, what colour is the moon supposed to be? Is it best in colour or Mono?













The first one is the most realistic colour wise, but I prefer the second one. Pixel peeping shows a total mess, but maybe that's because of the camera limits? I'd be grateful for some feedback . . .

I also took my first bird shots yesterday. All except one ended up in the bin - too slow a shutter speed :-( Here's the only one that was any good.





Again, many thanks for your support Erik, and thanks for the welcomes Tim and Bolador.

Ali.

Hi.
The moon shots are good.. bluish is about WB I think. I get them some yellowish when underexposed.
Focus is a pain I know..
One thing I don't know how to solve is the white border at the left. You can see it in the three shots. Any one does?

Bird is nice. Too.

I agree with Bolador - the color cast is probably a White Balance thing, easily modified in PP.

Should you be interested in the PP software I use (the only one I can comment on) - Photoshop Elements, it is pretty inexpensive and even more so if bought on eBay, the reason being that it is "Bundled" in both Windows and Mac versions with many things people buy, such as Epson Scanners, and then people sell the PSE disks. You can pick them up quite cheaply, particularly if you do not insist on the very latest version - PSE8 is fine, for instance. It will do all you can imagine, and more!

One more thing about PSE - and another reason I suggest it: PP software is NOT very 'intuitive', and things like "The Missing Manual", "For Dummies" and all do not help much - what is needed is a whole new mind-set, and I have found that the books by Scott Kelby, titled "The Photoshop Elements * for Digital Photographers" ( the * represents the version number) are the best way to get into it because you are not expected to fully understand things like "layers" - the books are set up like a cookbook: you look up what it is you want to do in the Table of Contents, and then follow a simple step-by-step "recipe". After doing a number of such recipes, you find that you start to be able to figure it out by yourself. These books are in most libraries and it's a good idea to look them over before buying.

Kinda busy today - I'm volunteering at our town's Marathon.

Full moon shots don't show as much detail as when it's at 1/2 moon or so - the shadows show things better - when the moon is full, it's "High Noon" there & not many shadows of mountains & craters.







--
"Measure wealth not by things you have but by things for which you would not take money"
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