Moon Cradled by Branches

Although the idea of "cradling" dd not occur to me at the time ofshooting, I was trying to get the moon emerging from behind the treebetween the two branches. A longer DOF with a higher f-stop mighthave worked better here. I'm not sure. Comments welcome.

--Lannie

Great composition

Best regards

 

Xavier Corcobado

xcorcobado.blogspot.com

Photographing the moon in these conditions is very difficult (speaking from personal experience) because of the very strong difference in light on the moon versus the rest of the landscape.  This is one situation where the eyes can see so much more than sensors or film.  I think you've done about as well with the exposure as possible.  Anything less will result in the nearby branches turning to black.  You will never get detail on the moon and still have anything on the periphery showing up.  Given that, I do like the composition with the moon cradled in the branches -- it's a good way to present this subject.  Nicely done.

Thanks, guys.  This is another one that almost found its way into the garbage bin until I saw the crop and said, "Why not?"

--Lannie

Hi Lannie,

Nice scene.

The 0.5 second exposure at 420mm focal length was just right. Any longer exposure would have recorded some motion blur due to the Earth's rotation.

I noted a small amount of noise in the blue sky portion. When I post processed your large image and removed the noise, I could not see any appreciable change in the overall outcome.

Best Regards,  Mike

I really like this one.....

 

Thanks, Mike and Diane.

Mike, what do you use for noise reductoin?

--Lannie

Hi Lannie,

I generally use CS5 Raw image reduction routines. If I work JPEG, then I use NEAT IMAGE, since it is has many controls over various noise components  and it has nice tables with pre-set values for different cameras, ISO settings, etc.

The use of ISO 400 at higher intensity levels , like daytime, show much less noise. Exposure values across the entire sensor play a role on how much noise will be detected. Also, the Blue channel and Red channel of most sensors used in DSLR is more prone to noise than the Green channel. Many arrays have twice as many Green sensors than the other color channels. So a true ISO 400 for Green  might behave more like a ISO 800 on another channel. Some sensors are less responsive to the Blue spectral region, too. All sensors  have a limited Red response due the near IR filter blocks that are placed ahead of the photo sites.

Best Regards,  Mike

Thanks, Mike.

--Lannie