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Most of the western hemisphere is going to see a lunar eclipse this Tuesday (on the winter solstice!  ).I've seen a good number of eclipses in my life, but I've never tried to photograph one. Does anyone have any tips for doing something interesting with it? I don't have the gear for shooting through a telescope but I'm thinking maybe a timelapse movie with an interesting setting could be fun. I'm not going to be able to escape city glow but I do have access to a pretty big prairie preserve I might use for a background. The biggest downside is the midpoint of the eclipse is at 2am local time.. staying awake seems like it'll be an issue.
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Dec 15, 2010 21:43
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 15:16 |
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Nope, I just have the inferior Illinois type of prairie. All the cold and winds of the north, but none of the fun stuff like heavy snow or auroras.
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Dec 16, 2010 00:15
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Is there any way to photograph the moon and still get some glow from nearby scenery? Or is pick one or the other? I know the moon gives off a shitton of light so it's gonna dominate any nighttime image it shows up in.. but are there any subtle tricks? Just take two exposures and combine in post?
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Dec 17, 2010 02:27
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Ola posted:There's a lunar eclipse tomorrow morning, going to try getting some shots. I've got an Oly E-420, 14-42 and 40-150 kitlenses and cheap rear end tripod and intervalometer from China. I'm trying to choose between: I spent a good chunk of the weekend setting up a rig for a time lapse panning movie of the eclipse.. only to check the weather this morning, and a snow storm is moving in. Which might be for the best. I'm not 100% sure I'd be able to get the shot and not trying at all is easier on the ego than trying and failing! 
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Dec 20, 2010 20:42
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I like the cylinder effect created by not pointing directly north or south.
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Feb 19, 2011 23:34
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A5H posted:Wow that's insane. In urban areas, the sky turns white or gold with long exposures, depending on weather conditions. Get out into the country though, away from city glow, and after sunset it will get nice and blue. Even after the sun is completely gone, it's more of a deep navy blue than perfectly black. The moon has an effect on the color as well.
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Mar 7, 2011 17:24
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Well that settles it, I never have to bother taking my camera out at night because I can't imagine a way to match that kind of effort.
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May 5, 2011 23:59
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Does anyone have any advice for shooting lightning? Storm blew through last night and I set up on the porch, just to get some practice in. After fiddling with settings to get an exposure I could live with, I pointed the camera at a section of sky, and took some pictures. First problem is bolts always seemed to hit just out of frame.. so I'd turn the camera, and the next bolt would be where the camera used to be pointed. So at that point I put on my widest lens and held the trigger down on my remote. Is that what most people end up doing? Sit around hoping something neat happens while the shutter is open? My second problem is it seemed liked bolts always hit in that instant between exposures, proving that nature hates me. I guess the only solution for that would be two cameras with staggered timers.
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Jul 24, 2011 19:47
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Yeah, city glow is an issue for me, so bulb exposures aren't gonna work. Getting a cool lightning bolt is just one of those things I want to be able to check off on my list of things to photograph.. too bad they're almost impossible to plan for around here. The storms tend to have really narrow tracks and blow through in under 30 minutes, so if you're not in the right spot, you aren't getting anything.
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Jul 25, 2011 15:46
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TheAngryDrunk posted:You should be able to get pretty long "correct" exposures at f/16 at night. That should help time things, no? Yeah, that's roughly where I settled. 8 seconds somewhere in the range from f/11-f/22 produced decent images. The major failure is the lightning rarely hit in frame. I suppose I could use this as an excuse to the wife why I need a wider lens.  Also, protective gear so I can set up in the rain.
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Jul 25, 2011 19:37
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I dug through all the pictures I took, 230 exposures, this is the only one with any merit whatsoever (and I think that's being generous). Someday I'll get an amazing lightning shot!
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Jul 26, 2011 04:16
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Roo-kie posted:On my first attempt I tried with a 10mm lens in a park near the city, but the results weren't spectacular. I actually like this one a little better, because the stars aren't as blurred. The edges of the processed one you posted are pretty distracting. The area around the dust cloud looks great though.
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Aug 9, 2011 16:29
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I think it looks awesome. 
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Aug 12, 2011 02:25
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atomicthumbs posted:
How did you do this? I assume that's city glow? Where did the noise come from? (like everyone else is saying, it looks super neat)
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Aug 15, 2011 17:16
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That's pretty neat. Turned a somewhat forgettable photo into something pretty epic. I guess this means I need to get better at visualizing what post processing can do for an image. 
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Aug 15, 2011 21:00
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Every time I read that clown's site, I find new reasons I want to punch him in the kidneys.
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Sep 2, 2011 17:31
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I leave my tripod in the car.. so it's always there if I decide I need it.
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Sep 2, 2011 19:42
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If you want lens advice, either post here, or try the-digital-picture.com The only thing Ken is good for is gaming search engines so he shows up at the top of the result list, fooling legions of new photographers into thinking he knows what he's talking about.
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Sep 3, 2011 00:10
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torgeaux posted:Lightning is the most maddening thing to shoot. Shutter open 10 seconds on, 3 seconds off, and every impressive bit of lightning is in the 3 seconds off. Interval doesn't matter.. even if you're shooting as fast as the camera can cycle, all the best bolts will still hit while the shutter is closed. Proof that the universe is sentient, and it hates us.
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Sep 17, 2011 13:17
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I would guess it was lit by a street light or something that was quite a distance off, which enabled him to take a longer exposure. Or maybe headlights from passing cars? It does look darn neat.. the strong division between light and dark make it look like it's out of a video game, but not in a bad way.
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Oct 6, 2011 19:59
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I like the first one quite a bit more.. the second one loses a lot of the feeling that it's nighttime, and comes off as borderline HDR processing. Question time: I did some camping over the weekend, and we had some great clear skies and I was far enough out in the sticks that there was no city glow. The downside is the moon was nearly full so I had that to deal with, and ended up not getting any images I was happy with. But what I did notice is I was having issues setting ISO and aperture. Either I wasn't letting in enough light and wasn't capturing stars, or I was letting in too much light and blowing out the sky (due to the aforementioned moon). What's a good rule of thumb for photographing star trails? No moon is an obvious requirement, but what kind of aperture do people usually use to avoid making nighttime look like daytime? And what kind of exposure time is typical? I did a few 5 minute exposures which seemed like a good start, but how far can I push it? 15 minutes? 30?
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Oct 12, 2011 21:13
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I've seen time lapses of ferris wheels, but that one cranks it up to 11. I don't think I've ever seen anyone turn one into a WHEEL OF SOLID LIGHT. I like the first one better, but the reflection in the puddle is kind of distracting.
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Oct 17, 2011 15:48
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I like that one a lot.. shame about clipping off the top of the ferris wheel though.
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Oct 17, 2011 17:51
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I'm driving through bumblefuck Utah next month, and I think I'm actually more excited for attempting some night photography than the rest of the vacation. Being away from city glow is super rare for me. Moon will be just a sliver, should be a heap of fun.
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Nov 2, 2011 03:58
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Falco posted:A rule I heard at one point to judge how long of an exposure you can get away with before star trails come into play is 600/focal length. So in my case 600/17 gives me about 35 seconds. He certainly got good results, but how the heck is he holding the shutter open for 90 seconds and not getting trails? I'm gonna be in bumblefuck Utah next week, so I'm really looking forward to trying it out.
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Nov 18, 2011 04:02
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For reference, this is the guy I was talking about : http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-tips/secrets-milky-way-richardson/ So I guess I was misremembering a little, he says 90 seconds is the absolute upper end for his 14mm lens.. 60 seconds is preferable (which still seems pretty long to me).
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Nov 18, 2011 22:04
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Here's the couple I took in Utah:  The "big" part of the milky way was below the horizon, but it was still a fun exercise. Taught me a bunch of stuff to remember for the next time (which will probably be next summer, so hopefully I can get the southern arm of the milky way). Biggest lesson? Figure out the hyper focal setting before heading into the wild. It is absolutely impossible to focus on the stars, only way I could do it was take test shots and check the LCD. Adjust focus, take another shot, see which picture was sharper. Also, if you're ever going through Utah, stop at Natural Arches National Monument. Easily the darkest place I have ever been, and the quietest. It was seriously goddamn eerie being out there by myself.. I went at least 4 hours without seeing or hearing another living being. Unfortunately I didn't get there before sunset, so wasn't able to set up any interesting scenes and I'm not suicidal enough to go stomping around in the desert in pitch black. So I just took my pictures from a parking lot.
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Nov 25, 2011 08:50
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TheLastManStanding posted:That's what live view is for. If you press the zoom button twice during live view it shows you everything at 10x and you can manually focus from there. It's pretty much the only way to focus in the dark, but I also use it for any stationary object I shoot just so I know the focus is dead on. I tried that, I still couldn't see stars on the lcd even if the camera was set to max iso and 30 second exposure.
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Nov 25, 2011 17:13
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s0meb0dy0 posted:Bulb mode. Can anyone explain how to use it well? What I can seem to understand is how long I should be exposing for. Darn, and I was going to suggest taking test shots. I'm sure there's math you could do to figure it out, but I always go lazy and take several shots until I get a decent one.
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Feb 5, 2012 20:12
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yoohoo posted:What is the difference between stacking multiple exposures and just leaving the lens open for a long period of time (with star trails)? I can only think that stacking would be beneficial if it's a bright night, but all of my favorite star trails involve stacking 50+ exposures for one picture. Shorter exposures reduce the risk of overheating the sensor perhaps? I could see it helping with errors. With 50 exposures it's unlikely anyone would notice if you threw one or two frames out. With a single exposure, you just spent 30 minutes putting all your eggs in one basket.
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Feb 8, 2012 01:04
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Helmacron posted:I don't know what your infinity focus trick is, but I like to auto-spot focus on the furthest, but largest light source the camera can see, then flick it to manual. This works for me. It will fail if you're out in the sticks with no city glow and no moon. I tried last November and it was one of my biggest photography failures ever.. midnight, milky way was rolling itself across the sky, a hundred miles away from the nearest street light.. I burned at least 30 minutes just trying to find some drat focus. Even at max iso and wide open there was nowhere near enough light for my camera to focus on anything. I had to do the "take a picture, zoom in on the lcd, check focus, turn wheel a little bit, repeat". Which really sucked, because it kept blowing out my night vision. I will never go out for night photography again without a lens that has a display for infinity focus on the barrel or some other mechanical means for finding it. 
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Mar 28, 2012 03:53
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Welp, time to add a welding mask to my list of photography gear. The instant foggy day effect looks great.
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Apr 3, 2012 20:03
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City glow or moonlight are great for turning night into day. You might have to experiment with exposure to not blow out the stars however.. or maybe try blending two exposures in post.
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Apr 6, 2012 00:52
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Falco posted:Thanks for the advice. I was having a tough time with live view because of the no moon that night. I just need to find a planet or something bright to look at and try it again. Either figure out infinity focus on your lens beforehand so you can set it in the dark, or shine your car headlights on something more than 10 feet away and focus on that.. it should be somewhat close. Take a few test shots and check focus on the stars, make slight adjustments until you nail it. Even planets will probably be too dim for live view to work.
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Apr 25, 2012 21:08
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oldmandon posted:I didn't know what this meant, so I looked it up. It's a France only thing as far as I know. The rest of the world rightfully gives these guys the middle finger for being dumbheads.
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Apr 25, 2012 23:52
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The SETE owns the copyright to the lighting display, so you can't take photos of it at night? Absurd.
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That's a really cool idea though, don't think I've seen it done. Go back and do it proper. 
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Apr 29, 2012 03:13
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Lightning bolts and fireworks? Jesus what an opportunity.
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Jul 6, 2012 02:16
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I'm taking a road trip through Montana and Wyoming at the end of the month, I am going to photograph the poo poo out of the milky way. It's so goddamn pretty. 
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Jul 6, 2012 07:22
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Spent a couple hours at Devil's Tower a couple weeks ago, had this idea to use moonlight to light the tower (it was about 50% full that night) and get some star trails orbiting Polaris. When all the sudden some rear end in a top hat climbers decided to descend.  So I switched modes and took time lapses of them rappelling down.  Not sure on the processing, I think it needs some attention. The screen on my macbook gets nasty banding and it makes it hard to do things right. So if anyone has suggestions I'd love to hear them.
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Aug 14, 2012 06:10
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That reflection is pretty badass.
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Aug 17, 2012 00:39
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