Tripod. Preset aperture, fiddled with plus/minus exposures, spot focused, then jerked camera around, timed exposure. Shot in colour, convert to greyscale, downsize, sharpen.
[Sep. 19th, 2008 01:55:48 AM]
Tripod. Turned off IS. Set aperture to 8, my smallest, and played with times. This one at 1/2 sec was the sharpest. Used centre spot focus and swiveled camera for framing.
Yes, I could have cranked up the ISO and opened up the aperture, but at the sacrifice of sharpness on the one hand and at the certain risk of noise from an already noisy sensor on the other. It escaped me for that happy moment that other cameras could have whizzed this off hand-held.
Statistics
Place: 88 out of 127 Avg (all users): 5.0325 Avg (commenters): 4.6000 Avg (participants): 4.8462 Avg (non-participants): 5.1275 Views since voting: 1135 Views during voting: 349 Votes: 154 Comments: 12 Favorites: 1 (view)
I think this is quite gorgeous. I also think it would make a marvelous print. I love (LOVE) that the treeline is just barely there, but *there*, and so crisp and clean. And it is indeed one of the sharpest moon shots I've seen. My fancy pants camera doesn't get the moon nearly that cleanly, I'll have you know. And I quite get a kick out of the fact this isn't edited. :-)
Thanks voters and commenters. Especially to JuliBoc. And to bassbone and basssman7 for their responses to my pms. (DrAchoo acknowledged my 1/2 second but didn't think it was an obvious enough long exposure, and I may have to agree, although the obvious is not high on my list of desiderata). Jac has responded by telling me how to take the same picture at a longer exposure (ISO 100, f 2.8) which indeed I may try the next time it comes up, although I expect some noise, and this was a minimal editing challenge, and the best (most noiseless) moon I have ever shot, and I doubt this would have happened had I not tried for the longest exposure via f8 and ISO 50.
Okay, so I enjoyed the presumption of the higher end camera users, as well as the many submissions that exploited the possibilities of the challenge way more than mine.
Tim- I liked the shot and gave it a 6 during voting. I am surprized that you were able to get that clear of a shot of the moon with 1/2 second - good to know for future work. I wish the sky were just a bit brighter to really bring out more of the tree line.
You got robbed by a bunch of know-it-alls who tried to second guess your exposure time. If they had checked your EXIF data, they would have seen the 1/2 sec. shutter speed. I like the shot and think the moon is lovely, and the silhouette of the trees is just right. I can see the trees clearly on my monitor. (And I can see the full range of shades in the scale below the image on the voting page too. So I think someone else's monitor needs calibrating.)
How can this be a long exposure when the moon is perfectly in focus? You must have shot this at 1/250th or there abouts so this isn't a long exposure. If it had been your moon wouldn't be sharp.
Long exposure? The moon is lit by the sun. That tells me that for a full moon photo to be properly exposed as this one is and not show any movement in the moon it would only be an exposure of about 1/125 sec or 1/250 sec at asa 100. How is that a long exposure?
I would also suggest calibrating your monitor. On my calibrated monitor I can only make out outlines of the trees in your photo if I stare at it really hard. It appears to be a black fram with the full moon in it.
I am not trying to be harsh, just giving you my opinion. Good luck.
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