It's blimmin tricky getting pics of the moon !
Discussion
Motoring - O/T
Was trying to get decent pic of the moon tonight with clouds in foreground... more chance of winning the lottery methinks (unless any of you have cunning plan)... I tried most things that my brain allowed, so I guess it's back to Photoshop from now on, right?
Any of you managed to get the moon in detail with clouds in focus? If so, give us a tip.
Anyway... just for the hell of it, here is pic taken 20:01 - having given up on clouds (tut)
Steve
www.SteveCarter.com
Was trying to get decent pic of the moon tonight with clouds in foreground... more chance of winning the lottery methinks (unless any of you have cunning plan)... I tried most things that my brain allowed, so I guess it's back to Photoshop from now on, right?
Any of you managed to get the moon in detail with clouds in focus? If so, give us a tip.
Anyway... just for the hell of it, here is pic taken 20:01 - having given up on clouds (tut)
Steve
www.SteveCarter.com
Nice pic of the moon. But to get a nice pic of the moon you need a long lens and a big aperture, both of which bugger your depth-of-field, which is why the clouds will be out of focus. Hence I fear PhotoShop will be needed... maybe take one shot with the moon sharp, then one of the clouds sharp (without the moon!) and superimpose the two?
And for homework: calculate the Guide Number of the flashgun you will need in order to photograph the moon when it's dark.
I don't know the answer - Bacardi probably does, indeed will have the flash for the job
- but you'll need a shutter speed of at least 1.5 seconds or you won't get the flash when it returns!
I don't know the answer - Bacardi probably does, indeed will have the flash for the job
- but you'll need a shutter speed of at least 1.5 seconds or you won't get the flash when it returns! If the clouds are a few thousand feet up, surely depth of field won't be an issue? More likely the problem is that clouds don't have such well defined edges when you look at them closely. Zoom out and you see them fairly sharply, zoom in and you can start to see through them where they are thin ... i.e. where they used to appear to have an edge.
Steve, that's awesome. 
Hmm (peers out of window) there's the moon. 'Scuse me for a sec, won't you?
(rummage...find tripod...clickety click)
Ah, that's better. Tried to take some nice moon shots before, but didn't quite get it right. These are better. Shame I didn't get off my arse over the last few nights - there have been some seriously lovely misty moon shots to be had, but I stayed in the warm. Fool, fool! And incidentally, the fields in Northamptonshire were utterly stunning looking yesterday morning with low lying mist with trees poking out of the top and a pink skyline. Was on the way to a client, didn't have the camera with me. There's a lesson there.
Hanyway. My average joe goes.
And this is one *good* thing about living in east anglia - off topic, I know.
Full size version of that here
(rummage...find tripod...clickety click)
Ah, that's better. Tried to take some nice moon shots before, but didn't quite get it right. These are better. Shame I didn't get off my arse over the last few nights - there have been some seriously lovely misty moon shots to be had, but I stayed in the warm. Fool, fool! And incidentally, the fields in Northamptonshire were utterly stunning looking yesterday morning with low lying mist with trees poking out of the top and a pink skyline. Was on the way to a client, didn't have the camera with me. There's a lesson there.
Hanyway. My average joe goes.
And this is one *good* thing about living in east anglia - off topic, I know.
Full size version of that here
absolutely awesome pictures.My pics were taken with a Canon EOS300D, with the cheapo 90-300mm USM lens.
Letting the camera do the work was a hiding to nowhere - I just got the same overexposed white blob you mentioned.
So I stuck the camera in manual mode, used the biggest aperture I could, and stepped up the shutter speed until the image became too dark. Took the images in the middle of the range that looked the best. The colour difference between the two images is down to white balance: the grey one was auto white balance, and is the one that more closely matches how the moon looks to the naked eye. The other one was the "cloudy" white balance setting and gives colours closer to Steve's shot in the first post of this thread. Not sure which I prefer.
They grey image is f/5.6 1/160th, the yellowy one is f/5.6 1/400th. Good images could be had from less than 1/160th all the way up to 1/1000th or so. All at ISO100.
>> Edited by Marshy on Friday 12th December 01:01
Letting the camera do the work was a hiding to nowhere - I just got the same overexposed white blob you mentioned.
So I stuck the camera in manual mode, used the biggest aperture I could, and stepped up the shutter speed until the image became too dark. Took the images in the middle of the range that looked the best. The colour difference between the two images is down to white balance: the grey one was auto white balance, and is the one that more closely matches how the moon looks to the naked eye. The other one was the "cloudy" white balance setting and gives colours closer to Steve's shot in the first post of this thread. Not sure which I prefer.
They grey image is f/5.6 1/160th, the yellowy one is f/5.6 1/400th. Good images could be had from less than 1/160th all the way up to 1/1000th or so. All at ISO100.
>> Edited by Marshy on Friday 12th December 01:01
Well I'm kinda glad you all didn't shout "It's easy you pillock". Thanks for the replies.
Even with high clouds, I find that for them to be visible the moon turns into a white blob (too blimmin' bright)... so my next cunning plan is to take the pic when the moon is just above the horizon, and therefore at its least bright (if you see what I mean).
I use the Nikon D1x - the moon pics was taken with a 450 mm lens and 'spot' meter mode. Most of the pics on the site were taken digital with the Nikon - there are a few medium format (GS1) on there and I still use a film panoramic (Xpan)... but the Nikon is so good I would only ever use film again if I needed to enlarge over A3 size.
Nice pics Chris!
Even with high clouds, I find that for them to be visible the moon turns into a white blob (too blimmin' bright)... so my next cunning plan is to take the pic when the moon is just above the horizon, and therefore at its least bright (if you see what I mean).
I use the Nikon D1x - the moon pics was taken with a 450 mm lens and 'spot' meter mode. Most of the pics on the site were taken digital with the Nikon - there are a few medium format (GS1) on there and I still use a film panoramic (Xpan)... but the Nikon is so good I would only ever use film again if I needed to enlarge over A3 size.
Nice pics Chris!
)
getcarter said:
Nice pics Chris!
Thanks - retaliatory cheque in the post ;-)
The clouds came out to play tonight, so I tried to get some moon plus clouds shots. As has been noted - the clouds get fuzzy at a large aperture setting. Small aperture plus long exposure ought to sort that out, but the damn things are moving too fast for that.
Here's what I got:-
Intermediate size (width 640px) here
Insane size here
Intermediate size (width 640px) here
Insane size here
Intermediate size (width 640px) here
Insane size here
Intermediate size (width 640px) here
Insane size here
>> Edited by Marshy on Sunday 14th December 01:09
this is the best I've ever managed
Taken with a 1D, 400mm + 1.4x extender, which is 832mm in 35mm terms
No clouds though. You might be able to get clouds in focus too by setting the lens at the hyperfocul distance, see here www.dudak.baka.com/dofcalc.html
Taken with a 1D, 400mm + 1.4x extender, which is 832mm in 35mm terms
No clouds though. You might be able to get clouds in focus too by setting the lens at the hyperfocul distance, see here www.dudak.baka.com/dofcalc.html
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