A70 settings for dawn & moon shots?

[GoldenOlive]

Any suggestions on best settings [app/speed/ISO etc], for tripod based shots of dawn/sunrise through clouds, & moon shot at night through moving clouds.
Goldenolive

[rrosener]

Hi,
The moon is surprisingly bright, and unless you use an f stop of about 16 or 11, you can overexpose it and end up with a white blob. So I'd try:
1.Put the camera in "M" mode.
2.Set the ISO for 100 or 200
3.Shutter speed of 1/250
4.F stop around 11 or 8
5.If the A70 won't stop down that far, experiment with higher shutter speeds and lower ISO settings.

This is where Digital really shines; with 35mm you have to bracket like heck and pray you got a decent moonshot. Now all you have to do is look at the LCD and trash it if it is too bright.

[GoldenOlive]

That is very helpful thanks.

Any thoughts on sunrises/sunsets through clouds, catching the pink/orange shadings that can occur?
Settings & filters?
Regds
Goldenolive

[Guillermo Freige]

Hi:
I sugest a different approach to moon shooting:
1.- Leave your ISO at 50.
2.- Switch to Av and set the apperture to at least 5.6.
3.- Switch the AE to spot metering
4.- Zoom all the way, center the moon in the center AF point, and if the shutter is 1/125 or higher, push AE lock, if not, you can open the aperture or increase the ISO, and repeat the step.
5.- Recompose the frame and shoot.

Probably setting the exposure compensation to -1/3 or -2/3 helps too. Keep adding negative compensation until the moon details shows.

To me increasing the ISO is the last option to use, because at higher ISO you have more noise.

Also if you want to get the clouds, you must take 2 frames, one with the above settings to shoot the moon, and the second in Evaluative metering AE mode, probably at higher ISO or larger exposure time (the best option to me), to shoot the clouds, and the compose it in Photoshop.

[Guillermo Freige]

goldenolive wrote:
Any thoughts on sunrises/sunsets through clouds, catching the pink/orange shadings that can occur?


Try in P mode, but with a heavy negative exposure compensation (-2/3 to -1 1/3) and low contrast setting, to retain the sunset color, and not to clip the red channel, and then postprocesing in Photoshop.

Here is really useful the double take too, if you want to retain all the shadow detail. The second take is similar to the first one but without exposure compensation, or with a little positive one.

[rrosener]

Hi,
I did a bit of searching and found exactly what you're looking for:
http://www.spaceweather.com/eclipses/gallery_15may03.html
All of the pictures on this page were of the Lunar eclipse and shot with digital cameras, and one with an A70. It's the 11th one down and was made without a telescope, so you'll get a good idea of what to expect.
Remember the moon seems much closer to us and larger than it actually is. The photographer provided this exposure data:

"Photo details: Canon A70 digital camera, exposure 5 to 8 sec at f4.8 and ASA200. "
Your times will be shorter because there won't be an eclipse. The moon moves pretty fast, so you may need to set the ISO at 100 or 200 to keep a decent shutter speed. As you can see from the A70 photo, the noise is not that objectionable. If you use ISO 50 with long exposure, you're probably going to get noise from hot pixels anyway, so it's an apples and oranges decision.
Next full moon is July 13th,. Have fun and let us know how they turn out.

[juno]

my own moonshots. Canon A60 + Sony VCL ES20A 2x Teleconverter at full optical and digital zoom.

http://www.pbase.com/juno2/moonpics

just look at the full exif info.