Blue Moon

[Steve S]

I shot this the other day. I found it very difficult to get a good shot off. The light of day kind of drowned out the saturation and contrast. It also made it more difficult to see the liveview screen for focusing. As a result, it took a good bit of editing to get a decent image.

What would have helped???? A smaller aperature and slower shutter, a filter?

I like the way it turned out, but think i could do better with some different settings. This was shot at f/11 and 840mm

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Steve,

Not bad, but as you say, it does look a bit over processed.

I can't see the EXIF, so I don't know the camera, shutter speed or ISO used.

If you did a Local Contrast Enhancement, the radius was too low, shown by the dark halo around the brightest parts on top and right hand sides. If no LCE, and camera = Nikon, then probably the Active D-Lighting did it.

A tad over sharpened perhaps, some of the craters and the REALLY hard edge on top and right point to this.

My best effort looks horrid by comparison though:

D5000 and Sigma 18-250mm: 1/500s f6.3 at 250mm, iso400 on 03-MAY-2009

I was pleased with it at the time (day after buying the camera )

[Steve S]

Dave, i had to do a dup. layer, set to soft light, to get more contrast and saturation. I think that is what made the dark ring. I had to do a good bit of editing to get it this close. My RGB histogram was staggered with the blue ahead of everything else giving a blue cast to everything. Shifted the red and green as far to the right as i could, but not enough. May have to do a manual WB setting next time, or use a filter(not shure what to use though). Not bad for a first try.
Need a 7D so i can crop the hell out of it and catch a flag in the background

[will_c]

For interest, I had a go at this with a Canon 55-250 (at 250, F5.6) on a 400D. Apart from heavily cropping (obviously), about all that I did was to turn the contrast up a few notches and increase the sharpening a bit.




Will

[Rodders]

Funny enough, the 31st of December is in fact a blue moon. Because the moon takes 29.5 days to orbit around the earth, every now and then you can end up with two full moons within the same month and the second one is known as the "blue moon" (nothing to do with colour).
On adverage this event occurs once every 2.5 years and the fact that it will happen on New Years eve is quite amaizing. The last time it happend on this date was back in 1990 and the next time it will happen won't be till 2028.

I hope you all enjoy your night and remember this event only happends once in a blue moon

Cheers

[Steve S]

Funny enough, the 31st of December is in fact a blue moon. Because the moon takes 29.5 days to orbit around the earth, every now and then you can end up with two full moons within the same month and the second one is known as the "blue moon" (nothing to do with colour).
On adverage this event occurs once every 2.5 years and the fact that it will happen on New Years eve is quite amaizing. The last time it happend on this date was back in 1990 and the next time it will happen won't be till 2028.

I hope you all enjoy your night and remember this event only happends once in a blue moon

Cheers

That's the reason i named it the blue moon and your the only one that caught it.
Thanks for the info, i didn't know the last time it happened was 1990.

[JK6065]

Blue moon reminds me to Tommy Emmanuel's version of "Blue Moon".
Here he does it 'with band' . Absolute brilliant guitar player he is.

[Donald]

Not one that's going to stand the test of time, but proof of the 'Blue Moon' on 31st December. Taken at 5:10pm, in a rush, just as I noticed the moon coming up. Dashed to an upstairs window.


40D 17-85 Kit IS USM @ 50mm. ISO 800. 1/40 @f6.3. Manual.

[Dave Humphries]

HI Donald,

Not one that's going to stand the test of time, ~

It might if you crop a good third off the left hand side, then you'll have the lead-in lines formed by the foreground roofs (why do I always think that should be spelt "rooves"?) and the spire thingy, all pointing at the subject.

I think I'd clone out the two/three artificial lights (on left) after the cropping to the right of the telephone pole, so the only light is sky and moonlight.

I think it would make a much stronger composition like that.

Cheers,

[Donald]

It might if you crop a good third off the left hand side, then you'll have the lead-in lines formed by the foreground roofs ...

Why didn't I see that? Thanks Dave. Will re-work and see how it turns out.