Morning Moon

GraphyFotoz

I got home from work the other morning and saw how the sun was on the trees....then saw the moon was still out! I RAN and got my camera and snapped this!

PP'd it this morning....did I over do the curves in PS2?:dunno

GraphyFotoz

I showered
Honest!

Andy

best thing you can do is make your post and come back tonight and look. standing by and wondering why in 2hrs there aren't responses is tough. the forum ebbs and flows.

i think you've sharpened too much, though it's a very nice scene. also, it seems a tad unsharp - what's the exif?

GraphyFotoz

Sorry!

andy wrote:

best thing you can do is make your post and come back tonight and look. standing by and wondering why in 2hrs there aren't responses is tough. the forum ebbs and flows.

i think you've sharpened too much, though it's a very nice scene. also, it seems a tad unsharp - what's the exif?

I have been on many message boards and this is about the slowest one I have ever seen for replies!
And NO I don't camp out at my computer....if I don't have something going on here I check back about every 2hrs.

Anyway......
I'm starting to get ticked.....everyone says my pics are soft.
It's either 1 of 2 things....my camera or my LCD Monitor?
At ISO 64 I THOUGHT things were supposed to be sharp!
I have even tried stuff at f8 and f5.6!!

I beginning to wonder if it's the Guy behind the box or cuz my sensor is dirty......sumthin.:pissed

EXIF:
F2.2
Exp 1/160
Metering - Multi Segment
ISO 64

Here is another of the series of 3 I took.
Untouched by CS2 other than resizing it.

EXIF:
F4
1/60
ISO 64

bfjr

From what I see and what I know (not much ). I would look at your shutter speed as the fault here.

1/60 even 1/160 depending on focal length not fast enough to stop leaves blowing in the wind. Even a slight breeze could cause the blur I see.

JMO though, maybe shoot at higher ISO so as to get a faster shutter, and see if that helps.

ginger_55

Uh, Graphy, things do lag on the weekends, I have noticed that.

On your photo, well, I hate it when I can't just say "nice photo" and go on with that. I was after the moon this past week, too. Some of mine were sharper than others.

Some people, a large percentage, I think, really like their moons to be MOONS. Not as a part of a scene which effect I have been working on. It seems that you have, too. I was fortunate to have gotten a nice sunset at the same time, I got a lot of comments on the group, mostly praising the sunset.

All that said, I, uh, I really hate this, but other than the moon and the fall colors I think the composition could be improved on. Boy is that a wishy washy statement.

I would keep shooting, keep posting, bunches. Respond to everyone on any list on which you are posting. Read up on different ways to approach composition............and it will come together.

I personally, and this may be a bit petty, but I keep a mental list of who has responded to me, and, if I have a chance, am not terribly busy, which I have been the last week or so, I then make it a point to respond to those people who made it a point to respond to me.

If I see a shot I don't like at all, I get "tongue tied". If I am in a hurry, I only respond to my closest friends, the ones who have responded to me over and over again, for months. I was that busy the last couple of weeks.

It was sad, I was posting, hoping for responses, but between the posting and the trips out of the house, to take the photos, I was not doing anything else. Not talking to my dogs, my husband, reading, not watching TV. I would eat with the food in one hand and work on the computer with the other.

I just hoped that people understood that I could not respond then. Most of my dearest and closest did respond to me. By the time I got some time, there were names I had never noticed before. I had a whole new list of people to "respond" to if I wanted their responses.

And I have tried. I am also trying to get in the shower right now. But I saw this, your, post, decided to respond to it.

The colors are really nice in your photo, I like the concept of putting the moon in a landscape setting. I do not, and it might just be me, like the composition that much. I am not much for rules in composition, and to go into what I do like, or know about composition, it would take hours. I ramble on. So the more books you look at, the more you copy others, say in the books of "good" photography, the more you will get a grip.

Meanwhile, you can be posting and responding. Don't bitch or whine, they, people here, they don't like to be made to feel guilty. Just keep saying "nice photo" to bunches of people. They will remember, maybe not all, and some are busy themselves, but things will get better. And post and post.

Oh, you might not have any time to eat or sleep, but, well, I have been wondering how others do it myself.

OK, and weekends are slow for the most popular of posters.

ginger

ginger_55

Also, it is dang near impossible to get the moon sharp and anything on earth sharp, too.

That is one reason to have the best composition possible. One it gives people something positive to say, and two, hopefully they will not be quite as critical of the sharpness issue. Though on this forum, people love to "help".

Yes, thought that was a misprint re your ISO, so I don't know what kind of camera you are shooting with. I don't know if I have an ISO of 64. I start out at 100 and go up from there.

I am not a technical person at all. I don't really care what is sharp, but I do care how something makes me feel, if I like it, etc. I know some rules, I have a certain style that I started with before I knew zip. I have read photo books for years. And I still get criticized with almost every post I make, if I am lucky enough to get responses, just like you. We all have different issues. Many people here are quite technical.

But they also like to "like" the photographs.

Perfection is your goal.............but not right off, just post and respond.

ginger (hey, I look every 5 minutes, too, if I am online)

gluwater

It is Saturday Graphy. People are out taking pictures, not posting right now. Check the bottom of the main page and it will show how many users are logged on, currently only 30, not many.

On to the pics. I don't do too much Landscape photography but in my little experience and from what I have read most of it is done at around f/8, the "sweet spot". Just because your ISO is low doesn't necessarily mean you will get a sharp image, sometimes it is just the opposite because your shutter speed becomes too slow with a low ISO in low light. Was this taken on a tri-pod? Was it windy out? Your shutter speeds were a bit low if you were handholding, not to say you can't handhold at 1/160th or 1/60th and get a sharp image. You said you tried at f/8 and f/5.6, was that of this same scene or something else? Could you post some examples at f/8 with exif? Could you also supply a 100% crop of the trees unprocessed?

GraphyPhotoz wrote:

I'm starting to get ticked.....everyone says my pics are soft.
It's either 1 of 2 things....my camera or my LCD Monitor?

I know people don't like to hear this but maybe it's neither, maybe it is operator error? Your focus could have been off, there could have been camera shake, at f/2.2 your DOF was definitely too small for the scene. You also said maybe your sensor could have been dirty, a dirty sensor will give specks, not blur throughout the entire picture. It could also be none of the above. Sometimes pictures look much softer when posted on-line, depending on the processing.

Just trying to help.

ginger_55

I don't do landscapes, per se, but I do "get" landscapes. F 8 and F 5.6 will not get you a lot of depth of field, nor will it get you to the moon and back.

I am working on one now, nothing in the foreground, except ocean, it is at F 16. I don't know why I shot it at that, but I did.

I have not looked at your moon up close, but I would guess that you focused on that. If you did, that is infininity. My lens does not do that well at infinity, I don't know about yours. But it is not going to make the trees sharp and the moon sharp. Not unless those trees are extremely far away, then probably nothing would be sharp, not as far as a leaf being visible and all.

There are ways to do this, I am not going to go into a lot of detail. You can do one photo focused on the moon, one on the trees and blend them together.

Or you can just focus on the trees and let the moon go as far as focus is concerned. I usually do it many different ways so that I can figure it out when I get home.

Just wanted to say that f 5.6 and f 8 are just f stops and not with very much depth of field either. For a landscape that I want all in focus I usually go to about f 22. And that doesn't always work.

Many years ago there used to be a club, or a form of photography where it was said everything would be in focus. I think Ansel Adams might have been a part of that. It was called F (something), I don't remember, but it was a very large number.

f 5.6 is my widest opening on my 400 mm birding lens. Very little depth of field. Not for landscapes.

ginger (I don't think of ISO in terms of that, except a low ISO will give you less noise/grain, but as I said, I start at ISO 100)

GraphyFotoz

Oh well back to the drawing board.
What more can I say without :deadhorse

Ric Grupe

Hey! I thought...
...that was MY moon. I think we were looking at the same thing at the same time. I understand why you took the shot....so did I!