Ever have a day......................

[cwgrizz]

Today was a day that almost makes me think that photography is not for me. I shot about 40 shots and was so disappointed after downloading them on the computer, they all got trash canned. It just wasn't my day, well actually it wasn't my subject either. There are two things/subjects that just kick my behind. Crows and the moon. Crows never have detail, just black blobs in a bird shape and the moon is always out of focus/fuzzy. The moon is still getting the technique down (maybe I will too. LOL) and the crows are just hard for me to get them in the right light and close enough. Ha!

OK, I have vented now, so we can return to the regularly scheduled programming.


ps. I'm getting old so I probably won't remember the problems I had today when I wake up in the morning. It will be a new day. :highly_amused:

 

[Don Kuykendall_RIP]

Ok, to fix the crows over expose by at least 2 stops. depending on the background.

The moon is very easy and you can get it correct in one shot, hand held.

1. Use your AF-S VR 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 G IF-ED
2. set the camera on program
3. ISO to auto with shutter speed set to 1/500 minimum
4. set focus to single point
5. set Metering mode to spot
6. shoot

This is the way I do it and I can shoot one frame and get it right.

 

[Don Kuykendall_RIP]

OK, 6 minutes later and I got my camera, set it the way I described and took 1 shot. Uploaded it and did a little Post Processing and saved and uploaded it here.

 

[cwgrizz]

Well [MENTION=6277]Don Kuykendall[/MENTION], you just make me sick. Ha! I will have to try that with the moon. I have been shooting Manual and on a tripod. Did I say you make me sick. Ha!

I did actually get lucky about a week ago and got these three shots of a crow. The sun was right to bring out some detail, almost too much.

Thanks for your insight. I will give it a try. One question: When you say over expose 2 stops, are you talking using the exposure compensation +2 or doing it with fStop settings?

 

[Don Kuykendall_RIP]

Well @Don Kuykendall, you just make me sick. Ha! I will have to try that with the moon. I have been shooting Manual and on a tripod. Did I say you make me sick. Ha!


One question: When you say over expose 2 stops, are you talking using the exposure compensation +2 or doing it with fStop settings?

exposure compensation +2

I spent a year trying to get a shot of the moon just like you have been trying. tripod and all. Never could get it. One night I just thres up the camera and shot. It came out good. I then fine tuned the procedure to what I gave you. IT never fails to get it on the first shot. Sometimes I set it on continuous and shoot about 5 in a row and then stack them to get a better focus. That can work to get a great shot but not always. It is fun to do though.

1/1000 sec at f5.6 ISO 100 not sure why I had it on -1.33 but it was. I did have to jack up the exposure in ACR a little to make up for it but it all worked out. LOL

The D7100 is a very forgiving camera.

 

[mikew_RIP]

They can be black bar stewards

Just one click in elements shadows and highlights,not the best way but it can save them sometimes.

 

[Felisek]

Don, you need a short-ish exposure time to avoid blurring from Earth's rotation. But I found that you can easily get away with times longer than 1/500 s. Here is a picture taken at 1/125 s (though I had to push ISO up a bit, since it was a fixed aperture f/10 lens).

PS: tripod is a must; a remote control and mirror-up mode help a lot in reducing vibration.

 

[Scott Murray]

Ok, to fix the crows over expose by at least 2 stops. depending on the background.

The moon is very easy and you can get it correct in one shot, hand held.

1. Use your AF-S VR 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 G IF-ED
2. set the camera on program
3. ISO to auto with shutter speed set to 1/500 minimum
4. set focus to single point
5. set Metering mode to spot
6. shoot

This is the way I do it and I can shoot one frame and get it right.

]Don, you need a short-ish exposure time to avoid blurring from Earth's rotation. But I found that you can easily get away with times longer than 1/500 s[/B]. Here is a picture taken at 1/125 s (though I had to push ISO up a bit, since it was a fixed aperture f/10 lens).

PS: tripod is a must; a remote control and mirror-up mode help a lot in reducing vibration.

View attachment 144038

Hey Marek Don does say to use 1/500s or faster!? Also a tripod is not always needed imho.

 

[Felisek]

Oh, I missed the "set camera to program" bit. Now I understand was Don was saying. I think he meant taking pictures hand-held, and hence a minimum of about 1/500 s for a 300-mm lens. I was talking about blurring due to Earth's rotation (the Moon moves in the sky and if your shutter speed is too long it will be blurred).

If you do use a tripod and remote control to remove all camera shake, than the only shutter speed limit is the Earth's rotation. This is probably about 1/100 s, but it depends on the magnification (focal length) and the amount of details you want to see.

But of course, without a tripod you'd need faster shutter speeds. And you can still take successful pictures! I should probably have said "a tripod helps" instead of "is a must".

 

[mikew_RIP]

@cwgrizz

Todays cock up to show its not just you,not really possible to save it but this is what you can do.

 

[Skwaz]

Hi guys
im same CW don't seem to be able to get good moon shots have a sigma 70-300 no vr
would you use spot focus and leave it to the camera or manual using live view

 

[aroy]

For moon shots you just need more focal length, else it comes out tinny with little detail

This is the best I got (800x800 crop!)

 

[Roy1961]

I can never get a good shot of the moon on a tripod either, always do better hand held for some reason, I did a few last night but felt my leg shaking a bit, I will upload them later to see how it turned out, I tend to stay away from crows unless the back ground and lighting to good, which doesn't appear too often. Keep at it mate, you will over come this.

 

[cwgrizz]

Well [MENTION=6277]Don Kuykendall[/MENTION], I was all set to try out your settings tonight, but the clouds had things covered. I did discover that I am going to have problems with your settings though with the D5300. I had not to date ever used P-mode until tonight. In P (Program) mode I was not able to adjust any settings. Also, I think I discovered a problem with my D5300. I set the Minimum Shutter Speed to 1/500s when I set the ISO to auto, however the minimum shutter speed is not limited to the 1/500s setting. It was dropping all the way to 1.3-2s. I will have to play more in other modes for the minimum shutter settings, but none of the modes seemed to use it. The only place I could change the shutter speed setting manually was in S-priority and M modes. In A-priority mode the shutter speed would drop to the same as in P mode (1.3 - 2s). I don't think I have anything else set that would effect the minimum shutter setting from working. Any ideas. If I don't get much feedback here, I will ask again for hints on the D5300 section. Thanks

 

[Don Kuykendall_RIP]

Hi guys
im same CW don't seem to be able to get good moon shots have a sigma 70-300 no vr
would you use spot focus and leave it to the camera or manual using live view

I am shooting with a 70-300. and I have VR turned off. Spot focus works great. Just set up the way I listed earlier and you should not have a problem.

 

[cwgrizz]

@Don Kuykendall Did you see my post #14? I am having trouble getting the 1/500s Minimum Shutter speed. Camera doesn't seem to recognize the setting. I have tried everything that I can think of without any luck. I may have a camera problem. I never tried the minimum shutter setting or P mode before tonight.

I continued this question in the D5300 section.

Thanks

 

[Danno_RIP]

Ok, to fix the crows over expose by at least 2 stops. depending on the background.

The moon is very easy and you can get it correct in one shot, hand held.

1. Use your AF-S VR 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 G IF-ED
2. set the camera on program
3. ISO to auto with shutter speed set to 1/500 minimum
4. set focus to single point
5. set Metering mode to spot
6. shoot

This is the way I do it and I can shoot one frame and get it right.

Thank you Don!!! I have struggled with shots of the moon as well... your suggestions REALLY helped. I had to run them in manual with my D3200 to get them to work, and I used a Sigma lens... I love this site. Learn something new every day... Thanks

 

[Marcel]

@Don Kuykendall Did you see my post #14? I am having trouble getting the 1/500s Minimum Shutter speed. Camera doesn't seem to recognize the setting. I have tried everything that I can think of without any luck. I may have a camera problem. I never tried the minimum shutter setting or P mode before tonight.

I continued this question in the D5300 section.

Thanks

There are manual settings that would work better than the P mode for this. I think one thing you might have forgot is to put your metering mode to "Spot" so you're just measuring the moon itself. If your metering mode is set to "Matrix", the camera is trying to bring the black sky to 18% grey so your moon gets completely overexposed.

For focus, when the camera is on the tripod, you can use the LiveView mode and by using the + button zoom in to the max to really nail the focus. Then, use the shutter delay and mirror up function to give the camera time to recover from the mirror movement before it takes the shot.

I'm certain that if you give it a bit more practice and take your time to experiment you'll nail it. Happy shooting.

 

[Don Kuykendall_RIP]

There are manual settings that would work better than the P mode for this. I think one thing you might have forgot is to put your metering mode to "Spot" so you're just measuring the moon itself. If your metering mode is set to "Matrix", the camera is trying to bring the black sky to 18% grey so your moon gets completely overexposed.

For focus, when the camera is on the tripod, you can use the LiveView mode and by using the + button zoom in to the max to really nail the focus. Then, use the shutter delay and mirror up function to give the camera time to recover from the mirror movement before it takes the shot.

I'm certain that if you give it a bit more practice and take your time to experiment you'll nail it. Happy shooting.

Program mode works just fine and the metering mode is set on Spot and I said in my post. As for live view there is no need to do this since spot metering mode works great for me.

Everyone wants to make shooting the moon more difficult than it needs to be. I got the camera out and set the controls, shot it, came in and did a little post processing and posted it here before I could have gotten the tripod out and put the camera on it and tried to frame and focus doing the other methods.

I am a firm believer in the K.I.S.S. method as long as I get the results I want.

 

[J-see]

There's only so much I can do with a JPeG but in RT there's an option called Tone-mapping which directly pulls out detail in these shots.



Crows are very hard unless the light hits them right and usually it is Tone-mapping that enables me to get the crow out of the black shape. In LR I killed the shadows and highlights to get similar results.