On Feb 10, 2013, at 2:43 PM, Aahz Maruch wrote: > While I'm working on sorting through the photos, I figure I might as > well put up some old shots (I suppose this is technically GESO, but it's > all different exposures of the same shot): > > http://rule6.info/photos/critique/moon/ > > I'm curious which shot(s) people like best -- and why. This was a quick > experiment in long exposures (I noticed the moon peeking through the > trees and ran in to get my A710 and tripod). The shots are nothing to > write home about, but might be suitable for postcards.
To be honest, none of them work. The problem is one of dynamic range. The moon is in full sunshine, so it's pretty much the sunny 16 rule: f/16 at 1/ISO for the shutter speed. The trees are completely backlit and need hella exposure. Not even the mighty K-5 can handle this much dynamic range. As you can see, by the time you crank up enough exposure to make out the leaves, the moon is completely blown out, showing every glare and reflection in the lens. You might as well shoot the leaves against a daytime sky. One option would be to take two exposures, one set for the moon, one set for the trees, and combine them in photoshop. This technique is called HDR, for High Dynamic Range. It's usually misused and abused to create garishly tacky images, but there are uses for it. Another technique would involve using a strobe or something to light the trees. But do note that even your darkest exposure has the moon so completely blown out that there is nothing of interest there. Another thing you could do, is shooting raw take an exposure somewhere between the two, and using lightroom, push the contrast as hard as you can, darken the blacks, whiten the whites and go for a shadow image. In reality, there are some photo that simply don't work, and I'm afraid this is one, or possibly ten, of them. Also, in cases like this, the important info is the exposure data. -- 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.
