The foreground of Sydney CBD office buildings is not the prettiest but this was a good test of the new EAF that doesn't require lugging around a 12v battery.
I powered it straight from my laptop using the hand controller to focus using the DSLR screen. I could possibly power it from one of those battery power banks, if I didn't want to take the laptop..
I've done a few of these & I find at full moon they work best when the moon rises a bit before the sun sets (in this case it was 25 minutes). If it rises much earlier you get a white moon, (which is still OK) but I prefer the yellow or orange moon that pops a bit more. If it rises later than the sun sets, then the foreground gets too dark compared to the bright moon. You can sometimes selectively adjust the brightness during processing (and you can always do a composite etc) but I prefer the single exposures where the brightness levels aren't too far apart.
Cheers,
Pete
Last edited by Retrograde; 24-07-2024 at 08:23 PM.
That's a nice shot Pete!
I like the rising moon but it's hard to get where I live. Once it's higher I usually find 1/250 or 1/500 exposure to get any colour in the moon, anything else and it's overexposed with my Nikon D810 and I'm not so good with EV adjustments because I take my glasses off to shoot and just know where the few necessary buttons are, stuff looking, I can't see the little Arabic symbols (they may as well be Arabic when I don't have my specs on, lol).
That's a nice shot Pete!
I like the rising moon but it's hard to get where I live. Once it's higher I usually find 1/250 or 1/500 exposure to get any colour in the moon, anything else and it's overexposed with my Nikon D810 and I'm not so good with EV adjustments because I take my glasses off to shoot and just know where the few necessary buttons are, stuff looking, I can't see the little Arabic symbols (they may as well be Arabic when I don't have my specs on, lol).
Thanks Leo!
I wear glasses too & found it very tricky to focus properly before I got a DSLR with live view, but now I can just use live view on the display on the back of the camera & zoom right in to 8x or 10x with my glasses on.
Live view is good but not on my Nikon D810 in the dark, it's nothing more than noise. For what was an expensive body brand new (I purchased it used) the live view is ABSOLUTE CRAP and Nikon should be ashamed of themselves. I usually resort to getting my son to focus it (if mosquitoes aren't out in force, they won't touch me but love my son), he has great eyesight, that or run in and out with the CF card and check the images on my 27" monitor but that becomes time consuming and ruins my dark eyes (which aren't much better than my normal sight anyway).
Live view is good but not on my Nikon D810 in the dark, it's nothing more than noise. For what was an expensive body brand new (I purchased it used) the live view is ABSOLUTE CRAP and Nikon should be ashamed of themselves. I usually resort to getting my son to focus it (if mosquitoes aren't out in force, they won't touch me but love my son), he has great eyesight, that or run in and out with the CF card and check the images on my 27" monitor but that becomes time consuming and ruins my dark eyes (which aren't much better than my normal sight anyway).
Oh wow that's disappointing for what was a premium camera not that long ago.
I've had the Pentax K-5 for almost 12 years now & it still performs pretty well although it's obviously showing its age in some ways.
I've used an older Canon 5D and the low light live view was amazing. That was on loan before I found the D810. I've seen a lot of talk about the D810 low light capacity with live view, not good and yes, when new it was considered a premium camera at a premium price.
Otherwise I can't fault the camera, just one very buggy feature, the one I really wanted.
I lined it up using Photopills, which was the first time I've actually used it.
I previously used The Photographers Ephemeris (which is similar but with fewer functions) on my old iPad, but the iPad died a while back.
The moon came out a bit lower than I was expecting compared to the buildings; although I knew the angle of the moon, I didn't have a very good estimate for the angular height of the buildings from my vantage point.
I lined it up using Photopills, which was the first time I've actually used it.
I previously used The Photographers Ephemeris (which is similar but with fewer functions) on my old iPad, but the iPad died a while back.
The moon came out a bit lower than I was expecting compared to the buildings; although I knew the angle of the moon, I didn't have a very good estimate for the angular height of the buildings from my vantage point.
Ahh yeah looks a cool App Pete,,
Brings back memories from yester-year using compasses, foldout-maps and rulers,,
Last edited by astronobob; 04-08-2024 at 12:58 AM.
