My first moon picture

[kcmocopper]

Well, I finally took my first good moon picture. I took it around 1:00 A.M. this morning. Hopefully I can get some pictures here in a couple of days while it is full. This S2 is wonderful!

[Swampy]

What lens did you use for this? Nice a crisp shot you got there.

The S2 does well with the moon. I've posted this somewhere else here, but here it is again for a reference spot. I used a Sigma 50-500mm f5.6-6.3 to take the shot in the link below of a full moon a couple of months ago.

http://theswampbbs.com/fullmoon.jpg

[kcmocopper]

I used a Nikor 4.0 70-300mm lens. The picture was taken f5.6 1/90 speed at 300mm.
I have been trying to get this type of picture for so long. I now know what I have been doing wrong. The s2 is teaching me so much about photography that a film camera won't. This camera is wonderful.

[Swampy]

You were way over exposing the shot previously, weren't ya? :) I think quite a few people have done that, including myself. The S2 will teach you quite a few things on the fly, as it has me. The guys that hang out here also provide awesome feedback as well.

[brenz45]

YEs I am guilty of overexposure but Im cured for now great learning curve.I have been shooting with the nikkor 80/200 2.8 in tiff mode and thinking I need a longer lens which I do but anyway I rattled some moon shots off raw the other night and the size advantage is great.

[kcmocopper]

Yes I was overexposeing!:D I was taking these pics in raw mode. Which is better raw or tiff? Taking the pics in raw is a lot faster out of the camera but converting them is a lot slower. I found that I like the raw mode for all my shots. But I am open to new ways of doing it.

I have my first wedding to shoot on July 27th and am very nervous about it. I have been shooting alot of pics and am pretty confident I won't screw anything up but still a little nervous. I will be shooting in raw mode but I have to have more compact flash cards because I am only able to get 38 pics on a card in raw mode. Any suggestions on which setting I.E. JPG, TIFF, or RAW and what resolution?

Thanks

[Swampy]

It's a matter of debate and preference on how to set your camera up for anything. I've been perfectly happy with Fine JPG set up with either 3024 or 4256 and STD settings for tone, sharpness, etc. As I've said before, I personally don't like the TIF setting on the S2, but that's a personal view. The argument may be that TIF is uncompressed, but when I look at it on screen on the computer, it seems to have some artifacting that I don't see in JPG mode as much. Every one of my "great" shots that I've printed out have literrally stunned people I show them to for clarlity, color and even composition (if I do say so myself). When you take a 3024 or 4256 JPG and print them into 4x6, everything is so scrunched in to the picture, I doubt anyone but a professional would be able to tell that it was a JPG.

I shot a friends wedding in 3024 and they were completely happy with the results. I was only shooting for fun as they had hired a photographer to do it. In a few weeks when they get thier pictures, I'm going to compare the two sets, but I bet they'll be happier with my shots since I've seen thier photographers work (from my wedding!).

The Func settings I use on my camera most of the time are:

WB= manual settings - I use Auto quite a bit, but for the wedding, I changed them manually for outside, incandesant and flash.

Fine JPG setting at 3024 or 4256 (your choice, they come out perfect for 8x10 and below very easy and above depending on the noise you may have in your picture and the crop you do.

Color, Tone and Sharpness all set to STD.

ISO - I set this to 200 and leave it almost all the time with the exception of some special shots. The wedding, I wouldn't use anything greater than 200 though, unless you aren't going to shoot with a flash indoors.

Some people like to leave Sharpness off and do it themselves during the post processing. Again, I've been perfectly happy with STD for it.

The S2 does a wonderful job on sharpness and an excelllent job on skin tones that beats out even film most of the time.

I would also suggest multiple CF cards, if you've only got one, and it's only a 512 or 256mb. Give yourself lots of room for multiple shots. I took 350 pictures at my friends wedding!

Hope this helps!

[kcmocopper]

Thank you for the info. I just bought 3 256meg compact flash cards today. Hopefully this will do me for a bit. I need to get a couple 1 gig compact flash cards, then I will be set.

[Swampy]

Just remember. Don't keep all your eggs in one basket. :)

I use 512mb cards which seem to make things easy when backing up my pictures to CD to put in my safe. This seems to be a happy medium where I can shoot half a day then switch cards and if something should happen to one or the other cards, I'll only lose half a day. 256's are good too. In my situation, that would get me 4 baskets for a day. :) Just a thought for you though.

[brenz45]

This is the moon from my end of the world and I was wondering what the distorted lines on a few of the edges are,is this artifacting?or simply the way I took the picture and how to avoid it