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shots on moonlight (1 Viewer)

Ido

Member
Dear Andy and friends,
Now it is the peak of the migration season here (Hula valley, Israel), and it is a birdwatcher heaven.
Among many others, a big flock of Cranes arrives every evening for the night sleep.
Just after sunset the air is crowded with thousands of birds, and they are in the air till darkness. Today the moon will be full, and it is an amazing sight: all the birds flying while in the background the moon is rising over the ridge.
I intend to try save this moment in a picture. Can you please help me to define the right setting (I'm using CP4500 and Fieldscoop 60 II ED + WA30X lens).
Since the combination of migration season + full moon + moonrise just after sunset + moon in the right position + clear sky + free time is very rare, actually
just few minutes every year, I don't have the privilege of trial and error.
I guess the birds will be seen as a dark figurs in any setting, so it is not a pure birdwatcher quastion, but I hope you still be able to help.
Thanks,
Ido
 
If I may offer my thoughts, Ido, alas I think you have no chance at all. You need a time exposure and they won't (can't!) sit still for it. I've tried much the same thing, only with Flying Foxes (very large bats) against the last of the fading sunset, and the results were unusable - and this it should be noted, was using the camera alone, not inflicting the massive light-loss on it that a scope involves. (They were close enough overhead for that.)

In the end, I just had to try to commit the moment to memory.

But if Andy (or anyone) does have a workable suggestin, I'll be delighted to learn from it.

Welcome to the Bird Forum, by the way.

Tony
 
Hi Ido,
I'm afraid I don't have any useful suggestions, your chances of success are remote with this type of shot with the equipment that digiscopers have. It would be a case of trial and error, a good shot would be more by luck than judgement.
Digiscoping doesn't really lend itself to artistic type shots like this, it's a method full of compromises at the best of times.
Regards,
Andy
 
I'm surprised that anyone thinks that a scene with a moon is anything other than contrived. Unless you are Ansel Adams and photographing "moon over mountains" you aren't going to get an exposure for the moon and subject at the one time.

If you see such photographs you can normally assume that some montage work has taken place either in the darkroom, computer, or camera. Large moon shots in landscapes are nearly always done that way.

So here is how the arty stuff is done.

Technical exposure stuff here

Pre-digital the way to do it was to take your camera and photograph the moon just as was rising above the horizon the exposure figures are 1/60th at F5.6 (bracket around this exposure), using a lens whose focal length is at least twice that of the lens you intend using for the main scene.

Putting it all together

Having got your moon shots there were two ways of proceeding.

1) Photomontage.
2) In camera double exposure.

For 1 with slide film you would a) have the moon shots developed b) take your foreground slide and develop it, c) sandwich the slides together and rephotograph using a slide copier.

For 2 you would have carefully aligned and marked the sprockets of the film when you first loaded the film. After taking the moon shots you rewound the film and reloaded it having carefully, aligned the marks and sprockets, so that the film winds back on in the correct place. Then you took your foreground subject exposing for the subject this time. Develop film normally.

Some photographers used to carry around a roll of pre-taken moons for when the right subject matter came up.
 
Ido

Sorry - I am a bit late on this thread.

Was your idea that the birds would be silhouetted against the moon, rather than be illuminated by it?

With a 30x eyepiece you should be able to get the moon to cover most of the picture, and I have done pics in the middle of the night like that with about 1/300 sec shutter speed (spot metering on the moon) which come out very nicely (although using an 80mm scope).

Don't see why this shouldn't give some interesting results if there are some distant birds flying in front of the moon - even if you only get around 1/100 sec.

Did you have any luck? Can you post any results?

Andrew
 
Andrew S said:
Ido

With a 30x eyepiece you should be able to get the moon to cover most of the picture, and I have done pics in the middle of the night like that with about 1/300 sec shutter speed (spot metering on the moon) which come out very nicely (although using an 80mm scope).

Don't see why this shouldn't give some interesting results if there are some distant birds flying in front of the moon - even if you only get around 1/100 sec.

Andrew

Andrew is correct. Consider that the moon is essentially in full daylight. So a typical daylight digiscoping exposure would be about right. You could always do test exposures on the nights leading up to the full moon to make sure your moon exposure is correct.

As I recall, in Ansel Adams' famous "Moonrise over Hernandez", he did essentially the same thing. He did not have quick access to his meter and used his knowledge of what the luminance value of the moon was to make sure he preserved detail there. He then developed for that exposure and did a lot of work in the darkroom to produce the famous results.

http://www.coolantarctica.com/Shop/ansel_adams/moonrise_hernandez.htm

In the digital world, you would probably want to shoot in RAW mode so that you can get a few more stops of exposure latitude and then do what you can in Photoshop to bring out detail in the shadows. Same basic idea. Different tools.
 
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