How to shoot night scene - Moon over Lake

jamesbrown

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I am using a Canon Rebel XSI. It was set to NIGHT SCENE when I took these photos. I want to remove all the light trails and have enough light to see the trees/water/moon but do not know how. The full moon is tomorrow and I want to attempt this again but am not sure what my settings should be. I assume I should NOT use night scene but rather manual settings. The only light source will be the moon over water. Any suggestions are appreciated.

P.S. I am a beginner.

Jamesbrown
 

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What you have to remember is, the moon itself is bright, and takes near daylight exposure with a fast enough shutter speed to keep from being washed out or even becoming a blur from it's movement. I never did a moon shot myself, but it was recently discussed on TPF. Do a quick search! You might get lucky.
 
First, get a tripod ... or put the camera on something that will not cause it to move. Those light streaks are cause by your movements of the camera at lower shutter speeds.

Second, like Early stated, the moon reflects a lot of light.

Third, the foreground will not be reflecting a lot of light.

You will have issues exposing for both.
If you expose for the moon, the foreground will be dark. If you expose for the trees, the moon will be too bright.
You should use bracketing, somewhere in the middle ground.
 
As has been said, the moon is bright and the rest of the area is darker, so to stop the moon from being over exposed or the foreground from being underexposed, you should get a graduated neutral density filter such as this one: B+W | 58mm Graduated Neutral Density Gray 502 Filter | 65063816
which will allow you to darken the moon without darkening the rest of the scene.
 

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