Night Shots

Tallboy

Took advantage of the recent full moon to do some shooting earlier in the week. I'm curious as to some tips to get a better moon/starlit shot...Heres a sample of what I was getting:

50mm lens, 32sec @ f/1.8, ISO 200 on my D40.



I'm pretty hesitant to post this up as the quality is pretty poor, but I'm anxious to learn what to do different the next time the opportunity comes along.:deal

Thanks!

BTW - the light spots at ground level are lightning bugs.

Wil Davis

Your picture: with long exposure, you'll get streaking of the stars (the Earth is moving after all…); if you let the camera do the metering, it will try to make the picture look like daytime (the camera doesn't know it's dark, and you'll have to underexpose to make it look like night)

It's difficult to get a decent picture of the moon and landscape in the same shot with a normal or a wide-angle lens. You need a standard (50mm) or a wider lens for the landscape, and a telephoto for the moon; so the easiest thing to do is to fake† it.

OK, so here's a trick you could try…

Landscape: make sure the moon isn't in the frame; use the metered exposure, but reduce by 1,2,3,4,6 stops (bracket); when you get the one which you like, use a telephoto and take a picture of just the moon

Moon: spot meter on the moon, or use an exposure you'd use in daylight (Q: what is illuminating the moon? A: the sun; therefore expose for the moon being illuminated by the sun, i.e. daylight…); again you can bracket -4 -3 -2 -1 0 +1 +2 +3 +4 stops etc. etc.

Now, you have a two sets of pictures; pick the best one from the landscape set, and montage the best one from the moon set.

I remember doing the same trick using film and multiple exposures back in the 1970s, but man, it's so easy with digital images; you chaps have never had it so easy!!!

er, that's it…

- Wil

† (but see dbcolen's thread http://www.dgrin.comshowthread.php?t=136501
on "Altered Images…")

Tallboy

Wil Davis wrote:

Your picture: with long exposure, you'll get streaking of the stars (the Earth is moving after all…); if you let the camera do the metering, it will try to make the picture look like daytime (the camera doesn't know it's dark, and you'll have to underexpose to make it look like night)

It's difficult to get a decent picture of the moon and landscape in the same shot with a normal or a wide-angle lens. You need a standard (50mm) or a wider lens for the landscape, and a telephoto for the moon; so the easiest thing to do is to fake† it.

OK, so here's a trick you could try…

Landscape: make sure the moon isn't in the frame; use the metered exposure, but reduce by 1,2,3,4,6 stops (bracket); when you get the one which you like, use a telephoto and take a picture of just the moon

Moon: spot meter on the moon, or use an exposure you'd use in daylight (Q: what is illuminating the moon? A: the sun; therefore expose for the moon being illuminated by the sun, i.e. daylight…); again you can bracket -4 -3 -2 -1 0 +1 +2 +3 +4 stops etc. etc.

Now, you have a two sets of pictures; pick the best one from the landscape set, and montage the best one from the moon set.

I remember doing the same trick using film and multiple exposures back in the 1970s, but man, it's so easy with digital images; you chaps have never had it so easy!!!

er, that's it…

- Wil

† (but see dbcolen's thread http://www.dgrin.comshowthread.php?t=136501
on "Altered Images…")

Thanks for the link, I'll take a look.

The moon isn't in that pic - I was shooting away from it. On a compass, my camera would have been pointing to the Northeast, while the moon was in the Southeast. However, you addressed another question that I was unsure of even how to ask - how to shoot moonlit landscape with the moon in the photo - thank you very much.

As I was waiting for the moon to come up over the hillside far enough to cast a good shadow on the hay bales, I caught this moonrise shot, again about 90 degrees rotation on the XY from the above shot:



Thanks again, so much to learn. I love this place.

Tallboy

I was out roaming around last night out to the local lake wanting to do something with the moon, which is again nearing fullish phase. Fiddled around a bit with some old dead trees - need to trust the histogram more. :cry

pathfinder

For stars shots with a stationary tripod, you will be limited to exposures shorter than ~ 20-30 seconds,or you will see the arcing star trails as you do in your first shot.

Your exposure for the forground will be much longer than for the stars, unless you light it in some manner, whether external flash or with a flash light ( a torch for those on the east side of the pond )

So you will need to take two or more exposures, and then blend them in post processing in Photoshop or your favorite image editor

Tallboy

Since I'm software illiterate...for the most part...I tried a different approach tonight to balancing the foreground darkness with the brightness of the sky. I ended up with a longer exposure in combination with flashing my SB400 at the start and end of the exposure. Only wish the water would have been as calm as last night, but the little bit of breeze rippled the water enough to make it very soft appearing.



pathfinder - thanks for the tip your suggestion to do multiple exposures sparked my mind to thinking how to try and essentially do that in one shot. Still not completely happy with it, but may try to improve another night.

Thanks again!

Bayer-Z28

Poor, nothing! That's better than most of my night shots! Darn ambient light was messin with me..

Tallboy

Took advantage of the recent full moon and got a couple shots:

This one is from early New Years day - around 2am:



this was from later that night ~ 10pm - I unfortunately lost the image I really liked (computer dumped it for some reason)- I'd moved the tripod just a bump on this one and it wasn't as crisp...nonetheless I love the range of colors that come out of this type of shooting.



unfortunately it's been too cloudy to get back out since then. :cry

Thanks for looking!

pathfinder

Processing of shots done during the dark of night, are always challenging for me, as a "proper exposure" will render the tones brighter than they are apparent to the naked eye at night - This is a shot of mine from before sunrise while it was still rather dark. The exposure was 58 seconds, ISO 800 f5.6 with a 21mm Zeiss Distagon ( the exif reads 50mm but trust me, this is a 20mm lens shot ) I may need to pull the tone curve down a bit for this shot, but it demonstrates star movement and how bright the foreground seems to be.



Foregrounds can be lit with speedlites or flashlights while exposing for ambient light for the background like this shot ISO 500, f6.3 1/30th sec with fill flash from a speedlite

Tallboy

Thanks Pathfinder - I am anxious for an opportunity to try the foreground lighting.

Awesome photographs by the way.

Shoots2Little

Tallboy,

I like the last one you took. I also like range of colors when getting those types of shots.

Check out some of these from a motorcycle forum hosted by same owner of this and smugmug.

http://www.advrider.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11788676&postcount=26

They are hosted on Smugmug if you want more info on the shots he took.

Tallboy

Well - it was time for another full moon. But it was cloudy - nonetheless I played around with my little flash a bit. C&C encouraged so I can keep trying things - Thanks.





edit:

I shot both of these with my little SB-400 connected to the hotshoe by a TTL cord and handheld. I forgot my second tripod - it would have been nice for the second shot, along with some cardboard or some othermeans to direct/limit the light.

Tallboy

A question for those more experienced with using speedlights than I (this would be everyone ):

Does anyone have a thread link or suggestion on ways to shape/direct light off of speedlights? In the second photo above, I was cupping my hands around the flash unit to provide boundries, but I'd like to come up with a product/technique/process to use on another tripod with the flash that is a bit more stable that I can make subtle adjustments to - doing it by hand was kind of a crapshoot.

Thanks for any insight!

RubyRen

dunno if this is any help
im new to all of this forum stuff but i have come across a great photograper. who has some lovely night shots and dusk shots.

his flickr url is:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gringo155/

and website is:
http://anthonybolan.co.uk/

i hope this helps he has helped me alot xxxxxx

Tallboy

RubyRen wrote:

im new to all of this forum stuff but i have come across a great photograper. who has some lovely night shots and dusk shots.

his flickr url is:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gringo155/

and website is:
http://anthonybolan.co.uk/

i hope this helps he has helped me alot xxxxxx

Thanks for the links - He has some very creative shots posted, and it's just a heck of bonus that he's given some insight into his setup. cool.