More advice than critique required!

Jaffster

Jaffster

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Danny
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Not sure what section this would come under, I'm not after critique on pictures, rather general advice.

I purchased my first DSLR yesterday after a years use of a point-and-shoot. I went outside for a smoke last night, around 11PM and noticed that the moon was an awesome colour and size. I stumped out the fag, grabbed my camera and tripod and set off for the fields round the corner.

I had a picture in my head, I knew what I wanted the picture to look like. I'm a bit of a night-owl and can blame being tired in work today completely on this picture that I wanted.

Around 30 shots and a couple of cigarettes later I realised that it just wasn't meant to be. I tried portrait and landscape, shutter priority, aperture priority, playing with them both, high ISO, low ISO, both my lenses, manual focus, auto-focus but it just wasn't happening and I would like to know why.

I've just quickly converted these in work, sorry for the banner at the bottom. The converter also lightened them a little so they have gone 'orangy'. These are the best 2:

#1
DSC00053.jpg


#2
DSC00055.jpg


I'm not sure if you can see what I've tried to do, but the moon was very prominent last night and the stars were strong white. The moon had lit the fields a pale white colour and from were I was stood, the picture in my mind was excellent. I digress...

Now, I would REALLY appreciate some help for someone completely new to the SLR world. I have the Sony A300, I have a basic understanding of lenses, focal-lengths (if that's the word) and the f-stop apertures they are capable of.

A) Which lens would be most suited for this sort of shot? I have 2 lenses, 18mm-70mm 3.5-5.6 and 55mm-200mm 4-5.6. Which would be a more ideal lens for this shot?

B) Where's all the noise come from? The camera was completely still on the tripod and I had noise no matter what settings I used. I tried a wide aperture and low shutter, narrow aperture and quicker shutter and every combination inbetween!

C) The stars aren't even visible at all, yet they were very clear last night.

D) The moon actually looks like the sun?! Why?

E) Should I be shooting in RAW or JPEG?

Thanks alot guys in advance for any help you can give a DSLR noob :thumbs:

EDIT: Question C - You can actually see 2 stars in the first shot, if you look very carefully! :(
 
I haven't got time to answer all of your questions - I'd recommend doing some general reading online about exposure.

In terms of this shot, the noise is probably caused by one of two things:
  • you have used a high ISO (3200, 6400 for this amount of noise) For this kind of shot, I think you would probably want to use a low ISO (100-200) and a long exposure.
  • it might be that it's the processing that has caused the noise. You mention that the converter lightened them a bit. If the converter has lightened the image a considerable amount, that could also be responsible for the noise.

Noise isn't caused by camera shake so it won't have been that.

The reason that the moon looks like the sun (and you can't make out the stars) is because you have overexposed it, so much that you've lost all of the detail.

This kind of shot is going to be difficult to pull off with (what I presume is) that much street lighting bleeding into the picture.
 
markrichardson said:
I haven't got time to answer all of your questions - I'd recommend doing some general reading online about exposure.

In terms of this shot, the noise is probably caused by one of two things:
  • you have used a high ISO (3200, 6400 for this amount of noise) For this kind of shot, I think you would probably want to use a low ISO (100-200) and a long exposure.
  • it might be that it's the processing that has caused the noise. You mention that the converter lightened them a bit. If the converter has lightened the image a considerable amount, that could also be responsible for the noise.

Noise isn't caused by camera shake so it won't have been that.

The reason that the moon looks like the sun (and you can't make out the stars) is because you have overexposed it, so much that you've lost all of the detail.

This kind of shot is going to be difficult to pull off with (what I presume is) that much street lighting bleeding into the picture.
Click to expand...

The pictures were still noisy prior to the conversion, I just got the humph last night and didn't convert them before bed hence finding a crappy converter today in work :bonk:

You're right about the streetlights, I didn't even consider that. I'm going to give it another go next time there's a clear sky, step 1 to getting a better picture is going to be moving further down the path away from the streetlights - thanks!
 
Jaffster said:
A) Which lens would be most suited for this sort of shot? I have 2 lenses, 18mm-70mm 3.5-5.6 and 55mm-200mm 4-5.6. Which would be a more ideal lens for this shot?



B) Where's all the noise come from? The camera was completely still on the tripod and I had noise no matter what settings I used. I tried a wide aperture and low shutter, narrow aperture and quicker shutter and every combination inbetween!


C) The stars aren't even visible at all, yet they were very clear last night.


D) The moon actually looks like the sun?! Why?


E) Should I be shooting in RAW or JPEG?


Thanks alot guys in advance for any help you can give a DSLR noob :thumbs:

EDIT: Question C - You can actually see 2 stars in the first shot, if you look very carefully! :(
Click to expand...

A)
I think the best lens would be dependent if you wanted to isolate the moon or get the landscape and the moon in shot the 200mm will get you closer to it

B)
I guess has been said already that the high ISO has not helped, shoot at 100 or 200 and I think depending on how long the sensor is open for noise starts to gather try switching the Noise reduction function on if the Sony has one

C)
The light pollution will overpower the stars I think

D)
Overexposed

E)
Shoot RAW



Focal lengths and apertures are confusing if you shoot big landscapes as you cannot see the differences very easily I think, I would shoot something close up and see the type of different effect it has from going from F5.6 to F18.

F stops the bigger the number the smaller the lens opening making longer exposures.

The smaller the F stop number the quicker the exposure.

Hope some of this helps
 
Moving to talk photography from landscapes...

As to the problem - it can't be done.

The moon is a very bright object and will need an exposure that is completely different to the available light shot exposure for the scenery.

You can get a properly exposed shot of the scene with a burnt out moon and you could take a picture of the same scene (camera on a tripod for both) with the moon having detail in it and completely black scene..... then use the good bits from both pictures to make a new composite view in a picture editing program.

Use manual exposure and trial and error your way to correct exposures. leave the iso speed at say 100 or 400 start with f8 as an aperture and vary the time. The moon might be around 1/100th.... the scene might be around 20 seconds.

edit...

I don't know Reaconvertor but assume it is a RAW editor. It has probably boosted an underexposed image and caused the noise. Shoot in RAW but get the exposure right :)
 
I don't know the sony, but

I think for moon shots, you are best off not allowing the camera to make any decisions.

You just can't tell it that what you are taking a picture off, is mainly a dark sky.

I think that your camera is changing things to try and give you as light as possible the fields, which is probably not what you want at all.


I don't think you are going to get the shot you want, from a single shot. I suspect what you are going to have to do, is expose for the ground, then expose for the sky. The pity is, that your eyes can do this for you, for the camera it is a bit more difficult.

As Bruce says, select ISO 100 or 200. This will reduce the noise. Also, select raw, and good luck getting it converted on your computer (I don't have a sony camera, and couldn't open a sony raw today).

I would select an F number somewhere around 8 I reckon, you are focusing to infinity basically, so the sillouhete of the trees (or however it is spelt) is probably what you think is most important?

Set the camera on the tripod, and select a time period of 30 seconds (this should have covered all bases, time=30 seconds, F=f8, Iso=100, have I missed anything?), if you can, use a remote to pull the trigger, and see what things look like. Is the moon too bright and over-exposed? If so, half the time. Is the grass too dark, double the time. Keep going in one direction, until you have either the grass/trees or the moon the way you want it on the LCD. Once you have that half correct, then go in the other direction for the other half of the picture.

I think that grabbing the stars might be a little difficult. They just don't produce the same intensity of light as the moon.

This image for example
img_2845.jpg
[/IMG]
was surrounded by stars.

The orange cast could be a white-balance problem. On my camera, which is not a sony, I have the option to record a white balance, take a photo of the moon as zoomed in as possible. Then select this image as a custom white balance. This gets recorded (if you have custom white balance selected) with each successive photo. OR, within the software which comes for viewing your raw images (at least, with the canon software), there is an option to use a click white balance. Open the zoomed in image, select click white balance, and continue clicking on the bright parts of that moon until the image looks correct (i.e. white with a blue? tinge).
Now record those values for white balance (again with the canon software it can be copied), and apply it to your zoomed out pictures.
This will make the software try and ensure that anything which should be white, when coloured by your sodium lights, returns to white again.
 
I know exactly how this feels ...... I have tried a number of times to capture a similar scene ...... the nearest I have managed is this example:

3429985269_c1989f00fd_o.jpg


but it was a matter of trial and error I'm afraid. The exif data is still attached or if you are not sure how to get it the pic is in my flickr.

The other thing you have to worry about is that the moon and stars are moving so too long an exposure and you just get a blurry mess. So its a fine balance and probably needs complicated and expensive equipment.

I have taken a fairly reasonable shot of a full moon hand held at about 1/125 sec but tripod is best if you are going to try the 2 exposure method. Also use the timer or a cable release.

Keep trying it will help you get to grips with your new dSLR ..... Good Luck :thumbs:
 
Coolhand said:
Pedantic I know, but it's it's the thing you're stood on that's moving...
Click to expand...

Oh yeah sorry I forgot the rest of the cosmos just stands still and waits for us to float by ...... ???? Get on with the Photo critique and stop being pedantic (wrong). :razz: I didn't say we weren't moving just concentrated on the matter in hand. Post like yours are probably one of the reasons why newer TP member do not feel comfortable to contribute. Oh ...... you are a new TP member maybe you should be a little less pedantic and a little more contrite? :shrug:

Paul
 
No offence, but they are both moving. (however, relativity theory and newtons laws come into place, you have no idea of what is happening to you, only items which are relative). [If you are in a lift that is falling at terminal velocity, you would not know about it, until you hit the floor, you could throw a ball to someone else within the lift and not know that you are falling]

::You're not drunk if you don't have to hold on to the floor!

Anyway, back to the matter in hand. I believe that the guys who do astronomy, perform what is called photo stacking. They take multiple shots, at 30 seconds exposures, then add (stack) the shots together. This means that the software that performs the stacking can adjust for the movement of the moon in relation to your position on the earth.
These are digressions though.
I think your picture is good hammerhead, I am surprised at the settings, iso 200, F/16! , T=1/60s
 
If you think about it the moon is an object lit by direct sunlight but surrounded by a sea of virtual darkness. Unless you have a seriously long lens and can spot meter the moon itself you are better off using a manual exposure set up roughly for sunny conditions, adjusted a bit for the atmosphere that gets in the way and dulls things down a bit, and for any cloud/mist that is dulling the moon down a bit further.

There is a guideline for manual exposure on planet earth, when shooting in bright sunshine, called the "Sunny 16 Rule". Because the moon is so far away and there is a lot of atmosphere between us and it the "Sunny 16 Rule" is modified to become the "Moony 11 Rule".

Sunny 16 means that with your aperture set to f/16 your shutter speed should be the reciprocal of your ISO - e.g. use f/16, 100 ISO, 1/100 or f/16, 200 ISO, 1/200 etc..

Moony 11 is just the same except you use f/11 instead of f/16.

In practice you are not forced to use f/11 to shoot the moon. You could open up to f/8, still shoot at 100 ISO and use a shutter speed of 1/200. That would be a good combination of settings all round for high image quality.

Now, with that said, I was shooting the moon a couple of nights ago and I found that Moony 11 did not actually give me the results I was expecting or wanted. The moon was a bit dark. So I modified my exposure to use f/8, 200 ISO, 1/200. Here is the result, cropped and resized....

3588500496_0015226a73.jpg


For your landscape shot I would recommend shooting raw, so that you have as much flexibility to push and pull parts of the image. You may also prefer to shoot two images at different exposures - one to get the moon right and another to get the earth right, then merge them. Another option might be to use an ND grad or ND split filter to dim the moon while leaving the foreground brighter. The one thing you mustn't do is to overexpose the moon to the extent that you blow it out and turn it into the sun - unless that is your intentional aim :).

Certainly you should not need more than 100 or 200 ISO for your moon shot, so hopefully noise need not be a problem.
 
Thanks for the replies, guys. I'm going to give it another try on the next clear night when the girlfriend's at home (once in a blue moon, some pun there?)

I'll probably bump this topic with the picture if I get it right :thumbs:
 
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