Help!!! with RAW

[batman44]

I tried to take a picture of the full moon rising up over the water. I used RAW, Manual settings, and when I took the picture - my viewfinder showed the moon in the color I wanted - and even showed some of the "craters"... when I opened the folder to transfer to computer - looked good... then I opened it in paint shop - and the moon is all overexposed! What the heck????

Here is what I did with the picture to make it look a little nicer, but I want the moon darker and orange like looking - like what the viewfinder showed on camera!

Ideas???? What did I do wrong? Very discouraging!

[Colin Southern]

Hi Kori,

Hard to know what's going on, but if you'd like to send me the RAW via www.sendthisfile.com file I'll take a loot at it from this end for you

[batman44]

You know me...I'd love to have You look and see what I messed up on!

[Colin Southern]

You know me...I'd love to have You look and see what I messed up on!

If you drive as fast as you send files then hubby should move aside in the race car!

[batman44]

Too funny! I'm laughing so hard right now! I'm just getting over a wicked cold/bronchitis - started laughing so hard that I couldn't stop coughing! But it was worth the laugh!
Hubby doens't think sooooo! ha ha!
I do drive faster than him too! He says he saves his speed for the racetrack! Lucky to get him to go 5 over the speed limit!

thanks Colin!

[Colin Southern]

Hi Kori,

Sounds like Coral is doing something weird like trying to automatically white-balance the shot, or (more likely) trying to auto-correct the exposure (it's lifting the mass of black and in the process, blowing the highlights) (keep in mind that it doesn't know that the bright bit is the subject - it probably thinks that the moon is a specular highlight and that what you really wanted to capture is contained within the black, and it's just trying to "save you from yourself".

Are there any automatic adjustment options that you can turn off (permanantly)?

[Colin Southern]

He says he saves his speed for the racetrack! Lucky to get him to go 5 over the speed limit!

Smart man

[batman44]

Not that I know of. This is the first time this has happened to me
I will have to search my options now and see what is what. I didn't change anything when I downloaded it.

[batman44]

Finally! All this time spent looking and googling! gesh!
anyway - I am HAPPY to say I found a way around it.
I open the file in ViewNX. Convert to a TIFF file, then open it in Corel! YEA! It worked! Now.... another new work (TIFF), will this never end?
Thanks for your help Colin - your obsevation really helped me search for an answer!

[Colin Southern]

Finally! All this time spent looking and googling! gesh!
anyway - I am HAPPY to say I found a way around it.
I open the file in ViewNX. Convert to a TIFF file, then open it in Corel! YEA! It worked! Now.... another new work (TIFF), will this never end?
Thanks for your help Colin - your obsevation really helped me search for an answer!

No worries Kori - of course all of this is SO much easier when you stick to Adobe products!

[KentDub]

No worries Kori - of course all of this is SO much easier when you stick to Adobe products!

Lol! Did you get paid to say that?

I used to be a Corel user... I made the switch reluctantly about 7 years ago -- and I havn't looked back. After a month or so in Photoshop I started learning sooo many things that just wern't possible with the Corel suite (or required a lot more work for the same effect). Check out the trial version of Photoshop and force yourself to use it until it expires -- I gaurentee you'll want to buy it at that time

[Colin Southern]

Lol! Did you get paid to say that?

With the number of customers I get for Adobe - Singh Ray - Scott Kelby - Canon it would be nice is I were on commission!

[Dave Humphries]

I tried to take a picture of the full moon rising up over the water. I used RAW, Manual settings, and when I took the picture - my viewfinder showed the moon in the color I wanted - and even showed some of the "craters"... when I opened the folder to transfer to computer - looked good... then I opened it in paint shop - and the moon is all overexposed! What the heck????

Here is what I did with the picture to make it look a little nicer, but I want the moon darker and orange like looking - like what the viewfinder showed on camera!

Ideas???? What did I do wrong? Very discouraging!

Hi Kori,

I can tell instantly from the EXIF what went wrong (1/3s @ f5.6, iso200 and 200mm), the moon itself is vastly over-exposed, far more than you can recoevr from RAW.

The viewfinder, being optical, just allows your eyes to mis-lead you as they would looking at it through binoculars. Only if you have Live View and use it, or review the histogram after shooting, will you spot the problem and even the latter is liable to not make it obvious what is going on because you'll see the peak of pixels formed by the sky+horizon and may not notice the very thin peak on extreme right - which, unlike having the sun or speculars in shot, is actually what you want to expose for.

Not sure if you paid any attention to the metering, but being on pattern / multi-segment meant it got it wrong. The metering has tried to give you a traditional scene, with highlight and lowlight detail judge over a wide area, and sadly it just won't work for this kind of shot. I don't think the D40 does spot metering unfortunately, but with experience, you can set some exposure compensation, or go with rule of thumb as below.

If you think about it, the moon is a sunlit object, and a pale one at that. Now if you take a
picture of say, a grey car in sunlight on earth and used those manual exposure settings, you'd expect it to be over over-exposed, yes?

I'd suggest manually setting about 1/250s @ f8 at iso200, but do bracket also, this will almost certainly lose the horizon, but you could always take the one from this shot and merge it in.

Have a look at my 3 moon shots here and note the settings I used (although note I was on iso400-500).

The moon is a tricky subject for most, including me, how'd ya think I know so much, I made ALL the mistakes you have - and not that long ago either

Have another go and show us the result.

Cheers,

[Colin Southern]

I can tell instantly from the EXIF what went wrong (1/3s @ f5.6, iso200 and 200mm), the moon itself is vastly over-exposed, far more than you can recoevr from RAW.

Something interesting Dave - when I open the RAW file it DOESN'T trip the highlight alert, and doesn't spike the histogram. It actually cleans up OK in the RAW converter.

[Dave Humphries]

Prove me wrong AGAIN why don't you!

No seriously, I am surprised, but a picture never lies
well this one doesn't

Shame about the blurring, some might be due to atmospherics at that low elevation angle.

Odd how one side is apparently sharp and the others not, I note it is the bit nearest the lens centre that is sharpest - judging by the flare position in the original post. Perhaps a good reason to get it dead centre.

I'm going to stop there before I say something else wrong

Cheers,

[Jim B.]

D40 has spot metering.Give that a try.It has a 10 second timer.At 200mm it should be okay,you might get some drift off center.2 seconds would be better,but you need a remote release for that.I think some of the blur might be from mirror slap.You want to stop as much vibration as possible.
Keep at it.My 1st moon shots were worse than what you have produced.

[Dave Humphries]

D40 has spot metering.

You guys trying to give me an inferiority complex?

Well, it's working!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Jim B.]

Dave,
Not a chance of thatYou've given me a lot of help here.Glad I can contribute with some of my limited knowledge.

[batman44]

Not Fair you all chit chat while I'm hard at work all day! LOL Well, now it's my weekend as I don't work fridays! YEA!!!

First: I know I should probably convert.... and I know Hubby will support the expense. I did search Adobe - trial..etc... but holy crap, I didn't know what one to try??? Yes I am blonde, but what the heck? There were so many different ones... help? Tell me which one to try and I will try! Okay, now - Corel is still pretty good as I am not an expert on any of this!

Here is what I played with.... yes it's blurry, and I don't know why, I used my timer delay -maybe the moon moved??? It was rising after all? It wasn't toooo windy either? I will reshoot next month if it's not toooooo cold (don't like cold).

This was importing it to ViewNX, then converting to TIFF then importing to Corel. Just played a bit and came up with this. I like the color - what I was after, just not the blur... live and learn - and I'm having a blast learning!

[Jim B.]

Hi Kori,

Next chance you get, shoot the moon when it's higher.You were shooting through a lot of atmosphere.You'll get diffraction which will soften your image.It's also easier to see how good your focus is if the moon isn't full.1/2 moon or less you can get a good gauge by watching the craters on the edge of the shadow from the earth.Practice using the craters and it will help you with focus on the full moon.
Yep,the moon drifts pretty fast.Center your 200mm lens on the moon and watch through the viewfinder.I was shooting at 520mm the other night and the moon would drift off center a good bit within 6-8 seconds.