So, I found the Looney 11 rule, and the only lens with which that is applicable is my 50mm prime lens and don't get me wrong, it worked. But, not how I wanted.
What I want is a photo of the clouds around the moon as well, with the moon being detailed. I managed to get this photo in pieces [clouds in one, moon in the other]. But, is it possible to get both in the same frame WITH OUT photoshop?
One of the things I have my heart set on, is using the Cloudy White Balance, it being my favorite for it's warm tones. This made the clouds look kind of like an ocean of fluffy red.... stuff. I liked it.
This is just an idea, and I'm trying to figure out my settings. But It's kind of miss...and miss. Help?
@paign I'm not sure I understand -- the Looney 11 rule can be used with any lens, it's not dependant on focal length.
If you are trying to shoot clouds that are being lit up by the moon, then the Looney 11 rule should work pretty well for that as well. If you are trying to shoot clouds that are a long way from the moon, and are lit from below by streetlights, then they are so much darker than the moon that it would be extremely difficult to capture them in a single photo. If you use RAW you might be able to pull detail from the extreme shadows, but it would probably be a struggle.
You can't keep detail in the moon if you use an exposure much greater than the Looney 11 rule specifies, so if you are using that and the rest of the photo is too dark, then you will probably have to combine multiple exposures.
Do you have any examples of the sort of thing you're trying to achieve?
I can't see how a single shot can handle the wide tonal contrasts. HDR seems an obvious technique. You'll need a wide exposure bracket, with the lowest EV giving you the moon detail and the highest EV giving you a "matrix metering" of the whole frame, perhaps even +1 or more compensation for the dark trees and roof line. Here's my first one shot attempt at the crescent moon and some discussion as to how I plan to proceed next time.
The real question I have for Alexis @abirkill is, how do I get the tree silhoutte and the moon and clouds in sharp focus? I can't work that one out! f/22 and I'll still be there waiting for the exposures to complete. :(
@frankhymus That was shot at f/4.5 so you had an extremely narrow depth of field. The simplest way to increase the sharpness of the tree would be to use a narrower aperture to increase the depth of field, aided by manually focusing somewhere between the tree and the moon.
For example, at a 200mm focal length as you were using here, if you set the aperture to f/22 and focus the lens at 290 feet (the hyperfocal distance) then everything from 145 feet away to infinity would be in focus. You can plug the numbers in here to see how altering them affects things:
Of course, I can't tell from your shot if that would be sufficient, as it's not easy to determine how far away the tree and roof line were -- they may well have been closer than 150 feet. Obviously you can simply keep using a narrower and narrower aperture to increase the depth of field to the point where the nearest and farthest elements are simultaneously in focus, but this has three problems:
1. You'll eventually reach the narrowest aperture the lens is capable of, which will limit the extent to which this technique can be used. This gets more and more limiting as you use longer focal lengths.
2. Above about f/11 on a crop-frame DSLR or f/16 on a full-frame DSLR you will start to hit the diffraction limit, which means that you will be trading off a wider depth of field against the sharpness of the areas of the photo that are in focus.
3. The narrower aperture will mean you have to either use a longer exposure or a higher ISO. Longer exposures are problematic for the moon, especially with telephoto lenses, as it moves across the sky deceptively quickly (an exposure longer than about 1/10th of a second can show the movement of the moon with a telephoto lens). This means that you must instead increase the ISO, adding noise.
Unfortunately these are fairly fundamental optical limitations which can't be worked around, so the only other option would be to take two exposures, one focused on the distant subject and one on the nearby subject. (You can, of course, take more than two exposures if necessary to capture the full depth of field of the scene across multiple images).
Blending these by hand, commonly known as focus stacking, can be tricky, frustrating and time-consuming. The good news is that Photoshop (and many other packages) can do excellent focus stacking automatically. This is a technique very commonly used for macro photography, but it would work equally well here. There's a tutorial on focus stacking in Photoshop here.
@abirkill Thanks Alexis. Yes, those are conclusions I came to. I'll eagerly check out the Photoshop reference.
The lens I am using is the new Nikkor f/4 70-200 and it is wonderfully sharp almost all the way out. I may try say f/16 - f/22 and take some care with the hyperfocal distance computation. I am sure you have calculators, but here is a good one I use. http://www.dofmaster.com/charts.html.
@abirkill My 70-300 is can only close down to 5.6 and my 18-55 is the same. I can't really match the needed aperture on my other lenses. I mean, they did well. just not what my idea is wanting. I know it'll be a pain. I was just wondering. xD
@paign I'm guessing you're getting a bit confused by what is written on the lens (e.g. f/3.5-5.6).
This doesn't mean that those are the only apertures your lens can use, it just means that the minimum (widest) aperture varies between those values, depending on the focal length. (E.g it can open to f/3.5 at 70mm, but only f/5.6 at 300mm).
This is very common for consumer lenses. The maximum (narrowest) aperture can also vary for zoom lenses, but this is not written on the lens. Regardless, all of your lenses will be capable of an aperture of at least f/22 -- try it!
I used the in-camera multiple exposure feature in my camera to get this one. 2 images. One exposed for the moon, the other for the clouds. They get "merged" in the camera using that feature. I did have to do a small amount of "photoshopping" as the moon had moved a bit between shots so I cloned out the offending bit of "double" moon.
@gigiz I'm actually really slow but I have the benefit of being psychic -- so I start writing the answers to questions half an hour before they're asked ;)
found the only way to get a decent cloud and moon shot with any detail at all was by bracketing my shots, the light of the moon is so strong that that clouds dont really get a look in if you expose for it and if you expose for the clouds you loose all definition on the moons surface
@paign he really is the most helpful person, yes? I follow EVERY word! I'm in the midst of trying to capture this perfect moon one more time and coming back to read his comments to see why I'm doing it ALL WRONG! :) @abirkill :)
Tweets ahoy!
Join the Group
Pin With Me
If you are trying to shoot clouds that are being lit up by the moon, then the Looney 11 rule should work pretty well for that as well. If you are trying to shoot clouds that are a long way from the moon, and are lit from below by streetlights, then they are so much darker than the moon that it would be extremely difficult to capture them in a single photo. If you use RAW you might be able to pull detail from the extreme shadows, but it would probably be a struggle.
You can't keep detail in the moon if you use an exposure much greater than the Looney 11 rule specifies, so if you are using that and the rest of the photo is too dark, then you will probably have to combine multiple exposures.
Do you have any examples of the sort of thing you're trying to achieve?
The real question I have for Alexis @abirkill is, how do I get the tree silhoutte and the moon and clouds in sharp focus? I can't work that one out! f/22 and I'll still be there waiting for the exposures to complete. :(
For example, at a 200mm focal length as you were using here, if you set the aperture to f/22 and focus the lens at 290 feet (the hyperfocal distance) then everything from 145 feet away to infinity would be in focus. You can plug the numbers in here to see how altering them affects things:
http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html
Of course, I can't tell from your shot if that would be sufficient, as it's not easy to determine how far away the tree and roof line were -- they may well have been closer than 150 feet. Obviously you can simply keep using a narrower and narrower aperture to increase the depth of field to the point where the nearest and farthest elements are simultaneously in focus, but this has three problems:
1. You'll eventually reach the narrowest aperture the lens is capable of, which will limit the extent to which this technique can be used. This gets more and more limiting as you use longer focal lengths.
2. Above about f/11 on a crop-frame DSLR or f/16 on a full-frame DSLR you will start to hit the diffraction limit, which means that you will be trading off a wider depth of field against the sharpness of the areas of the photo that are in focus.
3. The narrower aperture will mean you have to either use a longer exposure or a higher ISO. Longer exposures are problematic for the moon, especially with telephoto lenses, as it moves across the sky deceptively quickly (an exposure longer than about 1/10th of a second can show the movement of the moon with a telephoto lens). This means that you must instead increase the ISO, adding noise.
Unfortunately these are fairly fundamental optical limitations which can't be worked around, so the only other option would be to take two exposures, one focused on the distant subject and one on the nearby subject. (You can, of course, take more than two exposures if necessary to capture the full depth of field of the scene across multiple images).
Blending these by hand, commonly known as focus stacking, can be tricky, frustrating and time-consuming. The good news is that Photoshop (and many other packages) can do excellent focus stacking automatically. This is a technique very commonly used for macro photography, but it would work equally well here. There's a tutorial on focus stacking in Photoshop here.
The lens I am using is the new Nikkor f/4 70-200 and it is wonderfully sharp almost all the way out. I may try say f/16 - f/22 and take some care with the hyperfocal distance computation. I am sure you have calculators, but here is a good one I use. http://www.dofmaster.com/charts.html.
Thanks again!
This doesn't mean that those are the only apertures your lens can use, it just means that the minimum (widest) aperture varies between those values, depending on the focal length. (E.g it can open to f/3.5 at 70mm, but only f/5.6 at 300mm).
This is very common for consumer lenses. The maximum (narrowest) aperture can also vary for zoom lenses, but this is not written on the lens. Regardless, all of your lenses will be capable of an aperture of at least f/22 -- try it!
Let me know if you have any questions :)
I used a -3 EV on this one only because the moon was washed out.
found the only way to get a decent cloud and moon shot with any detail at all was by bracketing my shots, the light of the moon is so strong that that clouds dont really get a look in if you expose for it and if you expose for the clouds you loose all definition on the moons surface
@darylo He is incredibly helpful. I'm sure you'll get some fantastic photos :D