STW
11-05-2006, 06:45 PM
Here is a shot of the moon tonight. I've never taken any shots of the moon so this was trial and error. Messing around with settings can sometimes prove to be irritating as all hell! I ended up using a relatively low aperture (8.0) and faster shutter speed than you may think (I'll explain why in a sec). Set the ISO on 100 and the white balance on auto, only because I haven't set the custom white balance settings for night shooting.
I was having one hell of a difficult time selecting the right light metering. Thankfully my camera has a Digital ESP Metering selection. In this mode the camera will measure the light in 49 different spots on the object being shot. I don't have a very good telephoto lens so there was A LOT more dark in the frame than the light of the moon. This metering selection will disregard the very dark night sky and only meaure the moon light.
Another problem I was having is.....I don't have a tripod!! I gotta friggin get one of those. I think it would make life much easier. That is the reason I used a much quicker shutter speed than normal night shooting. The image came out very dim BUT it mostly, but not completely, eliminated "hand shake" I used Photoshop to brighten it up.
Okay recap: fstop 8.0, ISO100, shutter speed 1/50, white balance set on auto, Digital ESP metering on. I still didn't get the desired outcome but I tried. Maybe I should take some photography classes. Like I said it's not as good as I'd like to see. Ideas anybody?
original picture not altered:
http://uploads.webrats.com/files/659/mrr.JPG
Zoomed in and cropped
http://uploads.webrats.com/files/659/mr3.jpg
Altered with Photoshop - brightness levels and a sharpen filter.
http://uploads.webrats.com/files/659/mr2.jpg
I was having one hell of a difficult time selecting the right light metering. Thankfully my camera has a Digital ESP Metering selection. In this mode the camera will measure the light in 49 different spots on the object being shot. I don't have a very good telephoto lens so there was A LOT more dark in the frame than the light of the moon. This metering selection will disregard the very dark night sky and only meaure the moon light.
Another problem I was having is.....I don't have a tripod!! I gotta friggin get one of those. I think it would make life much easier. That is the reason I used a much quicker shutter speed than normal night shooting. The image came out very dim BUT it mostly, but not completely, eliminated "hand shake" I used Photoshop to brighten it up.
Okay recap: fstop 8.0, ISO100, shutter speed 1/50, white balance set on auto, Digital ESP metering on. I still didn't get the desired outcome but I tried. Maybe I should take some photography classes. Like I said it's not as good as I'd like to see. Ideas anybody?
original picture not altered:
http://uploads.webrats.com/files/659/mrr.JPG
Zoomed in and cropped
http://uploads.webrats.com/files/659/mr3.jpg
Altered with Photoshop - brightness levels and a sharpen filter.
http://uploads.webrats.com/files/659/mr2.jpg