moon at night looks like Sun

[qwertyjjj]

I shot a photo at night under tungsten with an aperture of 5.6 and shutter was something like 4 seconds...can't remember exactly.
Only issue is that, the moon in the picture actually looks like the sun. The rets of the photo looks good.
How can I correct this in future pictures, should the shutter speed be less? How do I do that whilst allowing enough light in at night?

 

[480sparky41 41]

Expose for JUST the moon, not including all the black area around it.

There's a simple rule for doing this.... it's called the Sunny 16 Rule.

After all, the moon IS sunlit, isn't it?

 

[Trever1t]

but then the res of the frame will be black as night. You have a very bright element in your frame, you can only expose for the highlight or shadows, not both in a single frame. Expose for the moon and use flash to capture the rest of the scene, if it is close enough to your light source.

 

[Dobbyn]

For an old-school guy like me (I still shoot film), this is heresy but here goes.

Load the image into Photoshop, and (completely) remove the Temperature from it. This will contrast the 'orange' of the tungsten, and you'll get a blue-white moon. It won't impact the 'black' of the night sky.

This works with a lot of street-light-lit night-shots, and you will get more of what you've envisaged when composing the shot and less of the orange wash through everything. Be prepared to be heavy-handed on the photoshop controls to get what you want, though.

 

[qwertyjjj]

For an old-school guy like me (I still shoot film), this is heresy but here goes.

Load the image into Photoshop, and (completely) remove the Temperature from it. This will contrast the 'orange' of the tungsten, and you'll get a blue-white moon. It won't impact the 'black' of the night sky.

This works with a lot of street-light-lit night-shots, and you will get more of what you've envisaged when composing the shot and less of the orange wash through everything. Be prepared to be heavy-handed on the photoshop controls to get what you want, though.

Can't see much orange wash but it might also remove the street lamps and the moon completely?

 

[480sparky41 41]

Time for some HDR.

 

[scorpion_tyr]

Time for some HDR.

Agreed, possibly the easiet way to do this unless you have the right equipment and really know what you're doing with lighting.

 

[unpopular]

Try spot metering off the moon and increasing exposure two stops (if, for example, the moon meters at 1/125, decrease time to 1/30) and bracket 1/3 stop over -1 stop (1/25, 1/15, 1/10).

It is likely, however, that the there is insufficient exposure for the foreground detail. If so, then there is too much dynamic range and the only option is HDR or some other multiple exposure method.

 

[scorpion_tyr]

One more option I just thought about is possibly using a graduated ND filter or blocking out the black sky with something during the shoot. It would take a few experimental shots but basically how I would do it is figure out what aperture and ISO I wanted for the landscape, and then spot meter the moon. Then meter for your landscape and during what will probably be a long exposure hold a black card or something in front of your lens to block out the moon and black sky for the whole exposure except for however long it takes to just expose the moon.

 

[unpopular]

Then meter for your landscape and during what will probably be a long exposure hold a black card or something in front of your lens to block out the moon and black sky for the whole exposure except for however long it takes to just expose the moon.

Well that's an old school approach! I love it! For some reason I never think to do this kind of stuff anymore.

 

[mjhoward]

Time for some HDR.

Or a composite

 

[qwertyjjj]

Can I do HDR from 1 photo or should I have taken 3 photos with -2ev 0ev and +2ev?
Could I use contrast/exposure blending instead? Doesn#t HDR make an unnatural image?

 

[Jaemie]

You know, that image is pretty neat just as it is, imo.

 

[480sparky41 41]

Can I do HDR from 1 photo

You can, but you will never get the dynamic range captured in one frame. You've already proven that.

or should I have taken 3 photos with -2ev 0ev and +2ev?

You can take as many frames as you like. You may well need to take -5/0/+5, -8/0/+8, -9/-7/-5/-3/-1/+1/+3/+5/+7/+9.....

Could I use contrast/exposure blending instead?

Haven't you already tried that?

Doesn#t HDR make an unnatural image?

Only if you tell the software to.

 

[unpopular]

Doesn#t HDR make an unnatural image?

An alternative to tonemapping is image fusing, which is more liek compositing on a local level. The results are always natural.

There is a command line utility called Enfuse for which there are a number of GUIs for. EnfuseGUI is a gui that looks very complete, though I've been using ImageFuser (mac only)

There is also a Lightroom plugin

http://www.photographers-toolbox.com/products/lrenfuse.php

and that website has a lot of good examples.