The moon-cloud experiment

All were taken with a 22mm focal length (the maximum zoom), focused at infinity, with (I think) the ISO set at 100. Mostly I was seeing what I'd get by playing around with the lens aperture and with the exposure time.


I started with lens aperture at F/7.1, a 1 sec exposure, and got:


I opened up the aperture to F/5.6, keeping other settings the same, and got:


I further opened the aperture to F/4, still 1 second (and same ISO), and compensated with a +0.7 overexposure, and got:


I reduced the aperture down to F/6.3, no exposure compensation, but extended the exposure to 4 seconds (yes), and got:

So, in the end, what I learned is that getting a brightly lit object and dimly lit objects in the same night sky to show up with decent detail on both is way more difficult than it might seem, and takes much more than fiddling with settings.

Moon-cloud experimentishness



Near-full moon obscured by clouds. Not that you can see any clouds other than the ones drifting in front of the moon, because getting any detail on the lunar surface keeps the rest of the sky too dark to see clouds.

And yes, the irony of obscuring the moon with the clouds is not lost on me.

The moon and where-are-the-clouds? experiment

On the left: the F stop (aperture) and shutter speed (exposure length);
on the right: the resulting shot.


F/5, 1/320 second

F/7.1, 1/200 second


F/7.1, 1/40 second


Moon and cloud experimentishness



Near-full moon obscured by clouds. Not that you can see any clouds other than the ones drifting in front of the moon, because getting any detail on the lunar surface keeps the rest of the sky too dark to see clouds.

And yes, the irony of obscuring the moon with the clouds is not lost on me.

Gooder-er-night moon

Crescent moon (with improved detail over the previous attempts at capturing anything) from my balcony.




(For the curious: exposure 1/20 second, aperture F/5, ISO 100; manual focus at infinity. And then cropped down, but no software enhancement.)

(For the really curious: taken with Canon S3 IS on a flecpod tripod wrapped around the railing on my patio with focal length 72mm.)
Shots from last month's Long Beach dragon boat tournament have been posted here.

Hi-ho

Doffing his bowler to La Brea Avenue, everyone's favorite amphibian variety-show host adorns the spire above the entrance to the Jim Henson Company lot.













(You were expecting some allusion to being green not being easy or something. Too obvious.)

Checkout

The Will and Ariel Durant branch of Los Angeles Public Library.
Sunset Blvd., Hollywood