Summer night

[kat]

I was trying to see if I could find a photo of my town at night and came across this night shot. We have a camping spot on the lake we can only reach by boat. I took this at about 2am..after one too many beers.

I used that noise reducer program to see if how it would make this come out. What a difference....

Any hints for night shots to make this better would be great..summer will be here before you know it and back out I go again!

[kat]

Hmm..yah. I know, I know..rules of third...anything besides that..lol

[AcadieLibre]

I just think the sun should have been lower in the sky, far to bright and what is that thing on the right? Nicely centered and I think the rule of thirds is an optional rule lol.

[kat]

Ha ha..it's the moon and the thing on the right is a fishing boat. Hmm..maybe the shutter speed on too long..lol!

[AcadieLibre]

Shooting the moon is hard when you start shooting it. If thats the moon your are very over exposed, I thought it was a hazy day which would give almost the same look. The boat throws it off balance.

[kat]

I have this photo at different shutter speeds. The problem being by the time the mooon reflection on the water showed up everything turned soo bright. I had the ISO at 1600..maybe lowering that? Or some kind of filter?

Here is another shot half way between seeing nothing and the first one. I would of really loved to have the moon not come out as a white blob..and I dodged the water to get some highlights.

[AcadieLibre]

I like the second one better without the flair, the moon looks like a moon. It doesn't have the flair. I would shoot with a lower ISO and longer exposure. It now looks like a serene night shot. Just my thoughts. And also now the boat is not a distraction. As you can tell though I am partial to darker photos so you need to take what I say with a grain of salt lol ..

[kat]

Thanks for the advice!! Can't wait to get some more night shots..just find them hard to get

[AcadieLibre]

I love shooting at night, anytime of year.

[BlueX]

I love to shoot at night too. Whenever there's a full moon out, I try to find some interesting background to place it in.

But shooting the moon is very tricky. There is not enough dynamic range in the camera to get a single shot at night with both the moon and the rest of the scene properly exposed. What I, and others, have resorted to is to take 2 pictures exposing for both and compositing them in post. When you take a picture of the moon, you need to use a spot meter in you camera (unless you have a super long lens and can fill the frame with the moon) and aim it directly at the moon. Then compose the rest of the scene and shot with you regular meter mode. You should use a low iso and a tripod with a remote shutter release or the self timer, for both exposures.

To avoid having to use composite trickery, you can take pictures of the moon eariler in the night, when it's not so dark out. Depending on the situation, I'd say shortly after the sun goes down, when the sky still has a deep blue glow. You will need to experiment here. But you will get a similar look as taking the picture at night.

One last thing, usually the moon is not a strong enough subject to make the focus of the picture. Try to compose/find a shot with an intersting focal point, then use the moon as an additional element.