Thanks all for your comments. Ann, I did some pixel peeping on other photos in the set looking for evidence of tripod shake. I think that one problem I'm having is accurately focusing the 20/1.8 in the dark. I suspect that infinity is not exactly infinity. On my cameras auto focus won't work in that light, and I didn't bring my laser pointer.
Pointing directly at the moon it wouldn't have made a difference, but do polarizers have the same effect at night on darkening the blue of the sky? Can they be used to bring out the stars better? Here's one where I used the burn in brush in lightroom to darken the sky: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellarsee/5193155990/ To do this right, I suspect I'd need to know a lot more photoshop. And, for those that are interested some more shots from the set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellarsee/sets/72157625430541230/ On Nov 20, 2010, at 5:55 AM, Larry Colen wrote: > I was driving home from dancing in SF, and seeing the mist and clouds lit by > the moon over some water I was compelled to stop and take a few pictures. At > one point when I was bracketing two cameras (K20 and Kx) two lenses (16-50 & > 20/1.8), several isos and exposures, my first thought was that if I had a K-5 > this would be so much easier because I'd at least know which camera body to > use. Then I realized that for this shot I didn't need a K-5, I needed a > 645D. Then I realized what I really needed was Ralf's nightscape skills. > > Where my thoughts ended up, while waiting for the 30 second exposures, plus > the 30 second dark fields, is that what I'd really like to see is what Ralf > could do at night with a 645D, and that if Pentax were smart, they'd loan > Ralf a 645D for a few weeks, just to see what one could do for night time > landscapes. > > I need to go to bed rather than going through all of my n-dimensional > bracketing from three different shooting locations, but after a quick scan, > this seems to be one of the more promising shots: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellarsee/5191532097/ > > K20, ISO 400, 16-50 at 16mm f/2.8 30 second exposure. Which matches my > previous experience that the sweet spot at night is a 30 second exposure with > the K20 at ISO 400. > > For the Bay Area Folks, this is shot from the frontage road, just north of > Black Road (Bear Creek exit off Hwy 17). > > If there's interest, I could post my full bracketing of one of the shots. > The last one I took ran into problems because the lens started fogging up. > > -- > Larry Colen [email protected] sent from i4est > > > > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- Larry Colen [email protected] sent from i4est -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
