Good advice Larry. I have seen close ups of the moon shot at 1/125 sec without noticeable movement, but faster is better according to what I have read (one article said 1/350 sec with a 300 mm lens). With the moon the size it is in this image, the movement will probably not be noticeable at much slower speeds. Good idea on using the spot meter on the cliff as a start.

Thanks for the information. That makes sense. In looking at your photo again, I see that what I thought was the moon's movement was simply flare from the overexposure. So my advice stands, and you should not have to worry about the exposure being so long that the moon moves during it.

These are from our Halloween Party last night, near Apison, Tennessee.

Linda's Halloween Shack


Linda's decorations

You don't say what shutter speed you used, but looking at the moon, I would guess as many as 30 seconds, as the unlit part of the moon has detail and the moon has moved in the sky noticeably. That could also explain the blown out light on the rocks.

You might have been better off using ISO 200 to reduce noise, and an aperture more like F8 to optimize the lens quality. But if that still required a long exposure, the moon would still show movement blurring. I always bracket my night exposures, as light meters are unreliable at such low light levels.

Thanks everyone for the critiques and kind comments. I think I will like it here.

A tripod is necessary when doing multiple exposures, but if you set your camera on a three shot bracket and use the high speed sport shutter setting, I can hold them steady enough without a tripod, thanks to a steady hand and Image Stabilization.

Good answer. My own preference is more towards greater DOF, so the subject is sharp from front to back. If you are going for the shallow DOF artistic approach, the portion that is sharp must be very interesting as it must carry the image aesthetically, along with nice colors and tones in the out of focus areas.

Not a Macro but this illustrates what I mean by DOF being enough

I am no Gregory, but I do a lot of HDR, which stands for High Dynamic Range. There are tons of info on the web about it. It is a technique used to allow a single image to display a range of tonal values in a very high contrast subject beyond what a camera can cover in one single shot. For example, you can get detail in a bright sky AND detail in the darkest shadows where it would be impossible to capture in one exposure.

True HDR uses two or more (usually three) exposures; as metered, two stops above and two stops below, and combines the best exposures of each into one image using layers in Photoshop or other software. It can be done manually or with one of many software applications available today. Below are some examples.

HDR images can be photorealistic, as mine are, or they can go for the more artistic "HDR effect", which has a cartooney look to it.

A night shot combining an 8 stop variation from the lights to the landscaping.


An interior lit only by door and windows, also with an 8 stop variation from landscape outside to fireplace.

One of my favorite subjects also.

Chattanooga Choo Choo


Porter Engine

Fantastic images of fungi, and your technique for lighting shows a very professional approach. I also love to shoot mushrooms, but have never done any to this level of beauty as I use only natural light. I do get my knees, elbows and chin muddy though.

Beautiful shot Hankm.

Yes, the D7000 has 16 mp, the D90 and D700 have 12.1, as I said.

They have the same number of megapixels, 12.1, but the ones in the D700 are larger, giving better low light performance. Given the same composition to begin with, there is little difference in the cropping ability, except the D700 might have slightly higher resolution. It would take a very big enlargement for anyone to tell the difference. Low light would be a different story, with the D700 having less noise.

No, I do not have a website, except on RedBubble, Viewbug and Eyefetch. If you insist I will post some shots, but I have since gone the DSLR (Nikon D90) route. Here are some on my shots from the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga.

Penguin


Jellyfish


Sturgeon

No ridicule from me. Great shots. The point of this post should be that some of the best sunrise/ sunset shots are taken well before sunrise, and well past sunset, as much as 45 minutes in the medium latitudes where most of us live. Light in the tropics appears/disappears soon before or after, while light in the arctic may last for hours before or after. Never leave too soon. The image below was taken over 20 minutes past sunset, and all the photographers had gotten in their cars and left except 4 of us, who believed the fog might finally lift... and it did.

Clingman's Dome at Dusk