Monday, July 14, 2014

Super!!!

Saturday night was our first of three Super Moons this summer.
I played around with the manual settings on the camera.  With a lot of experimenting I got a couple of good shots, even without a tripod.  The one coming up in August is supposed to be the most brilliant of the three.  
Did you see it?

15 comments:

  1. I saw it! It was amazing. Great photograph! Wow!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you. It was fun having a camera that could do it. I know it can be better, but it's a start.

      Delete
  2. Replies
    1. It was! I read that it's most spectacular when it's closest to the horizon. I've got to figure out the timing of that for next month!!!

      Delete
  3. It was actually king of funny because I started with auto and it was lousy - especially zooming in it was awfully shaky. There's a feature on the camera that is similar to what you linked for night time shots without a tripod where it takes multiple shots and actually combines them or something like that. But it made the moon double up. I had like a blurry moon and then a blurry reflection of the moon right next to it. So I ran upstairs to the computer and quickly researched what I should do. I found some manual settings to start with, of course using the tripod, and then I played around from there. I kept running up the stairs, plugging the camera in so I could see them on the larger screen, taking note of what I did, and then running back downstairs to adjust them. About half way through I realized I wasn't on RAW some how. I changed it, but during settings that weren't quite as good. When I went back down to take it again in the settings I liked and in RAW it was hiding behind some clouds. I tried a couple more times but it just wasn't as clear as the ones like above. It's supposed to be "closer" next month, so I'll try again.
    I like the idea of what that link was doing with the bright/white sky. I never know what to do in that scenario. I'll have to watch some of the other ones where he explains how to use those multiple shots to create one in photoshop. PS is on my other computer which is as slow as molasses compared to the new one so I don't use it much.
    Do you watch a lot of this guy's tutorials? Is his channel one you recommend?

    ReplyDelete
  4. No no, that was one I found that explained just that idea. It might be a good channel, I'll have a decko.
    There are a few problems with the moon. You can hand hold it. In fact on a long ex you'd have to close it down to nothing for it's actually very bright. But to really get it you'd need at least 1000mm or better 1200mm lense to fill the frame closed down to f/16-22 and a shutter speed at a second or more.
    With your camera you got a raw converter. It's the importing program. In that you'll have settings for sharpening, and a lot more along wit it(not as much as with Lightroom or the Mac equivalent but enough so you'll notice). At the moment, the camera is doing that for you, and to the algorithm that it decides for that's what the camera system does with Jpeg. It is close to impossible to explain the difference. Yes you think the Jpeg is better but the volume of data lost in the making of the file prevents you from doing all that much to correct anything after. Take Jpeg and RAW, there's a combo setting. That's the only way to truly see.
    Oh, if you do have/get a tripod, remember to click the IS (Image Stabilization) switch (VR vibration reduction on the Nikon, same thing). But make certain it's on otherwise. It allows you handhold a Stop lower and more if like me, you live a good life :-).

    ReplyDelete
  5. I set the camera to do both, for now. It sure takes up tons of space on the card doesn't it. I went from 4000+ on Jpeg to, 1200 on just RAW, and 1000 on both. It's plenty of pictures, probably even for a trip, but surprised me.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I took a couple of shots since changing the setting and there really IS a difference! I'll have to play around a bit with the RAW, and see if I get better results. :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. You may not see it but if the histogram is not clipping the right or left sides and you've what you want in focus you're sweet.
    The camera I'm thinking is the d800e 36meg of file for each photo. But even with the 18 or so SD cards in single digits is a bit few. Call it five to the hundred, that's 50 and a bit to the gigabyte. And if you go into stitching panorama s. You could easily have ten for one.
    I was thinking, can you use the PC for PS only, shoving all to a hard drive. Would that give you the space.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yah, I could wipe everything off the PC except for PS and just use it for editing. I've gotten to where I'm pretty exclusively on the mac so turning that PC on and waiting 5 minutes for it to load sounds totally unappealing, but it might be better as I have more capabilities with PS. My mom just bought PS Elements for the Mac and will bring to load on my Mac when she comes into town next month. She's using it now and seems happy with its capabilities. It has fewer features than the PS I have on the PC, but in reality the percentage of that program I used was quite small.

      Delete
  8. Oh I meant to say when you import RAW files from the camera it will stay in RAW format. You'll have to convert to Jpeg to upload or print it. Now I don't know the working of the Canon Processing software but giving a quick glance it seems vastly better than the Nikon version. This link gives the guts of the info, but I'd use youtube videos to bolster it as it's written by someone who knows their stuff and assumes you do too. http://cpn.canon-europe.com/content/product/canon_software/inside_digital_photo_professional.do

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'll have to look further into this link when it's not midnight after a very long and busy day, but I'm surprised at what the software seems to offer. I know the camera came with disks, but I had no idea that it included pretty good editing software. They make a seemingly valid point about it being a Canon program working with a Canon camera being a good thing. Thanks for pointing that out to me (although I feel pretty lame for not realizing it myself). :)

      Delete
    2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIqd1OTcWLQ&index=1&list=PLCD7AA7E58615DDBB these seem clear enough.

      Delete
    3. Ha ha, the first 20 seconds describes it to a tee. :). Thanks! I will go dig that disk out and start playing around with it this weekend. And how nice the demos are on the Mac. I appreciate the link. :)

      Delete
  9. You are really doing great with your camera : ). Way to go.

    ReplyDelete