Tylerd Loc: Scotland

Hello, I took this picture at about 4.30 am the other morning. I happened to look out of my bedroom window and just had to run down to take get some shots of the full moon hanging over the river. It was a beautifully crisp night and between the clouds the moon and the beam of moonlight over the water were crystal clear. I was though really disappointed to see the end result, which is quite blurry. I had set a very long exposure -30 seconds -as I didn't want to increase the ISO -and I realise that some of the blurriness will be the result of the clouds shifting during the exposure . I was shooting on manual but using autofocus, f.11,focal length 28mm and was using a tripod . Camera is a Pentax K5 and the metering mode was centre weighted average. I have the same problem generally with getting the right settings for landscape shots (though I don't usually set such a long exposure) and I 'm finding it really frustrating as I know I have agood camera. Any advice would be very welcome , thanks :cry:

wallace

are you using a remote trigger for the shutter? or are you pressing it manually on the camera?

Out of the Fog Loc: Eastern Edge of North America

Hi,
Without the original to download, you shutter speed was probably a bit long for this image. If the clouds were moving in front of the light source (the moon), everything else was also changing; your lighting, reflections of both the moon and the clouds off the water, shadows and hues. This could easily create an image that is not very sharpe. You could have tried dropping your aperature to 5.6 or 4 as depth of field is not as critical with scenics where most of the content exceeds your hyper focalpoint. That would drop your shutter speed to less then 5 secs.

Tylerd Loc: Scotland

Hi , manually but using a 12 second delay. I've just remembered that this was one of a series of 5 bracketed shots but I don't suppose that makes any difference

Tylerd Loc: Scotland

sorry my response above was to Wallace

Tylerd Loc: Scotland

Thanks, I'll give that a go next time

wallace

It's hard for me to tell, but if the mountains are blurry, then it's probably camera movement.
If the mountains are sharp, then I agree that you should experiment with time/aperture.

Out of the Fog Loc: Eastern Edge of North America

With low light photos and long shutter times, movement from the shutter release should have little effect on your picture. We are talking about a 30 sec exposure and the vibration from the shutter release would be much less then half a second.

If you want to try something interesting, the next time you take a nighttime photo with a 30 sec exposure, walk across in from of the lens, 10-15 feet away while the shutter is open. As long as you keep moving, you won't register in the image. If you stop for 5-10 secs, you will probably show up as a ghost. Low light photos are intimidating at first but become a lot of fun once you get the hang of it. The reverse is also true....you can move the camera around for several secs and then keep it stationary for 30 secs. The only thing that'll register will be what it sees for the time it is still. Bright highlights and reflections will also produce interesting effects on the result.

CajonPhotog Loc: Shreveport, LA

Just zooming in on my computer to your uploaded image, as far as I can interpolate it appears that the crest of the hills are ok, but everything that can have motion does have motion, even the boat is slightly "mellow" for lack of a better word. Over all I like the effect that you got, but to get it sharp you will have to find some way to take a faster photo. ISO up, aperture more open, SS faster, or a combination of these.

LoneRangeFinder Loc: Left field

At those exposure times, everything other than the land in the background should be blurred to record: movement of the clouds across the sky, plants blowing in the breeze, and water flowing.

CajonPhotog Loc: Shreveport, LA

exactly. :)

rts2568

To Tylerd
From rts2568

30th second should have been your minimum shutter speed. Aperture set for required DOF - your choice. ISO is not important other than to ensure it gives you a balanced EV. Tripod mounted - very good but you would need to ensure that the shake reduction switch is off, the mirror is locked up and a remote control device is used or a cable release.

The ISO is not important because if it is high it will give you noise but, noise or not, if the shake is eliminated (along with the subject movement - which is obvious and apparent in this shot) then the sharpness will over ride the effect of the noise - in this case it may not be the worst bokeh effect.

Obtaining a sharp subject result is paramount, avoiding noise in this kind of shot isn't. Having said this, don't go out of your way to push the ISO too much, rather increase the shutter speed.

Everything in this shot is blurred, despite what has been mentioned by others and that is waht you need to remove. When you get another chance to shoot a similar scene, take a few bracketed shots anyway, checking each one on your LCD. This bracketing will give you more options in PP.

I can't emphasise enough that inadequate shutter speed is THE problem in this shot.

Sorry to be so blunt but when you get to take the next set and follow this instruction set, then you will be able to prove this for yourself. Adopt good tripod practices, that will help a lot.

If there was any breeze and you only have a light tripod, then the faster the shutter speed the better again.

When shooting moving water - which this water is by virtue of air movement and wave action and, current, even though this latter may not be obvious and 4AM and just after you've woken up, but it is there; the trend for those who want to have a glary white, blurred water fall, then a slower shutter speed is recomended, for this shot it should be avoided at all costs.

Hope this helps but, don't take my word for it, just get out there another morning and find out by doing.

Have fun waking up again.

rts2568

heyjoe Loc: cincinnati ohio

maybe drop the f down,bump the shutter up,try to keep the iso
low

Izza1967 Loc: Bristol, England

Don't forget to turn of image stabilization when on a tripod unless lens or camera do this automatically for you

gizzy.whicker Loc: Cumberland Co., Illinois

Every once in a while a photo or two I've taken is blurry. But I learned how to solve that problem. I simply put all the blurry photos over in another folder, remove my glasses, and PRESO they all look perfectly fine.