Limits of my camera and lens?

stevet1 wrote:

Was 1/13 too slow for handheld? Should I have used a tripod?

Yes to both.

A general rule of thumb (in the absence of IS / VR) is your shutter speed should be at least as fast as the reciprocal of your focal length. E.g., at 55mm it should be at least 1/55 second more or less. Of course that's just a general rule but it's a starting point. I certainly can't handhold 1/13.

I'd never attempt a low-light shot without a tripod or resting the camera on something solid.

Should I have put the camera in Manual and deliberately set a faster shutter speed? Was the blurry moon the result of the 1/13th speed, or just trying to do it handheld?

Again, yes to manual. To get you started you can fiddle with ISO, shutter speed and f/stop to get some kind of acceptable exposure, then tweak the up/down to get the best combination of noise, DOF and clarity. The T8i will show a live histogram in Live View, so use that to get in the right area.

I suspect the shutter speed was less of a factor than handholding. I usually bracket quite a bit under difficult circumstances. Electrons are cheap.

Was there just not enough light for autofocus to work? Should I have switched over to manual focus? The light was so dim, I can't tell if the leaves are in focus, and the moon is out of focus - which is not what I wanted. I had the camera in single point and aimed at the moon, but I'm wondering if the camera overrode me and chose the nearby elements of the leaves.

The camera won't override a chosen focus point but at 1/13 second any breath of wind will blur the leaves. There may well be no way to get both perfectly sharp. Stopping motion blur will require 1/125 or faster, depending on the motion. Getting the moon at that shutter speed is a stretch to say the least. For example this image...

https://photos.app.goo.gl/56qRdrZuCKAxpQ6E6

...per the on-image notes was taken at 1/160 at f/9, but that was through a telescope with 4" aperture on a tracking mount. That's much more aperture (and hence, light-gathering ability) than a camera lens.

Also the moon is at true infinity, so you'll need to either stop down or focus stack to get the tree in focus as well. Don't try autofocus in the dark. Use Live View, zoom in 10x and focus on whatever is your primary target -- probably the moon in this case, and given the low light. Pick a sharp edge or detail and manually focus it as well as possible. Make sure Focus Peaking is turned on so when you go back to 1x on the LCD you'll see (by default) red highlights on what's in focus.

What you're trying to do -- both near leaves and infinity moon in focus -- might be tough at best.

The night sky wasn't nearly so bright blue as it seems in the photos. It was actually quite dark. Should I have taken it out of auto ISO?

Yes -- Always manually set ISO. I never use Auto ISO at all. There might be some isolated uses for it, but certainly not at night. Offhand, I might be tempted to start around 1600 ISO and go up / down from there after testing. Also, the moon is gonna move if your exposure is too long. You can read up on the "500" or "300" rule of thumb about that, although I think both are optimistic. Also there's basically no way around it - With a nighttime shot you're gonna have to do some noise reduction in post.

It looks like I've got lens flare going on in the first photo. Is that the result of pointing the camera directly at the light source?

Yes. Some lenses are more or less prone to flare, too. Also, stop down one f/stop from the max open aperture your lens will do. The image quality will almost always be better.

And you are shooting raw, right? Don't shoot JPG.