larryepage Loc: North Texas area

Which Nikon are you using? I ask because several years ago I was doing Milky Way photography and found that there was enough shadow information from starlight in one of my images to allow bringing up quite usable ground information. Now I was shooting at ISO 4000 for 30 seconds with a D810, but there is a lot more illumination in moonlight than in starlight. Knowing that you are willing to use raw may open up a whole new group of alternatives if your camera is capable and has sufficient functionality.

toxdoc42

I have a Nikon Z50. The image was shot at f/6.3, ss 1/25, ISO-160, 50 mm native length, 35 mm focal length 75. using the kit lens 16-50 mm.

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

Thanks. I do not have a Z50, but perhaps someone who does can give insight into setting up exposure bracketing.

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

I think just pasting a well exposed moon into a well exposed scene would be much easier and more effective than HDR. And if you did want to change the size of the moon, it would also be easier.

toxdoc42

Thanks, I had considered that possibility. I am from the old school, make your image in your camera. I once posted an image I took on safari of a leopard in a tree, the sky was uninteresting behind the cat, but it was what it was. Someone decided it would look nicer with a painted in sky. Perhaps it is a better art piece, but it wasn't what I actually experienced. I also took many classes in photography in which the goal was always to get the image right in the camera, some of the classes didn't even permit cropping. I don't think there is a right.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Ignoring the replacement processing, the point is: to get the moon properly exposed and then reveal the details of the scenery in your processing, your best option was already mentioned:

1, Expose for the moon
2, Capture in RAW as the lowest ISO possible for the moon exposure.
3, Digitally 'light' the foreground in post, whether with HDR techniques / software, or editing the shadows and highlights manually

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

That's fine if in-camera HDR will do what you want. But conventional HDR isn't in camera, and pasting in a moon is easier. To me old school was doing post processing in a darkroom rather than a computer. And post processing can be used to make the scene look more like you saw it.

toxdoc42

good thoughts, i will try that next time as well. I will have to zoom in on the moon to find the correct exposure though, then zoom out for the image, hopefully the data in the moon will be correct and there will be enoiugh data in the dark foreground. That is why I will do the HDR as well, perhaps being sure one of the exposures is "right" for the moon and one "right" for the foreground.

SalvageDiver Loc: Huntington Beach CA

Not being there to see the scene myself, I cannot duplicate what you saw. However, the intent was to show that there is a lot of information in you file that can be recovered. A raw file would give you even more recovery latitude.

From an exposure perspective, an HDR would give you more latitude to push the image, but it appears that's not totally necessary, especially if you had the raw file available. But this only addresses exposure.

Regarding this particular image, the problem with the moon, however, isn't just exposure. The moon is, even in the darkest image, not only overexposed, but also out-of-focus. Out-of-focus is unrecoverable. If moon details are your objective (i.e., your going to make a large print) then this image is a throwaway.

So what went wrong? Checking your exif data, you had manual exposure set, but autofocus ON. The camera focus distance was 10m. That is your sharpest focus point. If your lens is sharp (an assumption), your focus point should have been on the moon at infinity to get the most possible details. While your DOF was 2.6m to inf, that only defines acceptable focus, not best focus (not necessary to get into lengthy discussion about DOF, COC and Lens MTF). However, setting focus on the moon at infinity, could make the foreground focus problematic.

Regarding whether your camera/lens combination is capable of resolving the details in the moon in your image, the entire moon is only about 50 pixels wide with an overall image size of 5600x3728 pixels. The entire moon occupies about 0.009% of your entire image. Not a lot of information available to work with even if your focus was spot on.

tgreenhaw

What you are really looking for HDR, High Dynamic Range photography. Multiple images are exposed and combined to have ideal exposure for different parts of the scene.

Another example of where you use this is daytime interior shots; a well exposed interior has the view from a window blown out; HDR gets you a much better result.

Check the manual for your camera to determine if it has an HDR mode. You can also combine them in post processing. There are a wide variety of ways to do this and an internet search should yield a method that matches your equipment setup.

Also, at night, always try to use a tripod for long exposure times

tgreenhaw

I see the Z50 has an HDR mode: https://www.manualslib.com/manual/2004550/Nikon-Z-50.html?page=262

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

The photo you’re thinking of has a very high dynamic range - perhaps more than you can capture at one time - so you’ll need some kind of technique, such as HDR, to approximate it.

toxdoc42

Actually, I focused on the large tree as my target. I was having a great deal of trouble uble focusiny, and, you are right, i should have changed to manual focus.

I was amazed at how much data was in the RAW image.

Thanks to all who gave constructve comments. I learned a lot from this experience.

R.G. Loc: Scotland

Your original post was a query about getting it right in camera, and you've had some good answers. However..... if you have the means and the ability, the best answer is to do a composite. That way you can end up with the foreground perfectly exposed and focused, and the moon will be perfectly exposed and focused - and not necessarily as small as the actual moon would have been (😉 I won't say anything if you don't 😉).

coolhanduke Loc: Redondo Beach, CA

Try shadows and highlights in PS on the darker ones.