Moon crescent

[Gavin]

I have been waiting for a cloudless sky to get a shot of the crescent and tonight was the night.
Nikon D850: Nikon 80 - 400mm @400mm on DX format: f/11 1/20s ISO64

[Ozzie_Traveller]

G'day Gavin

Looks beaut to me mate ... and congrats on getting a clean sky when the rest of us appear to be under cloud & rain

Phil

[Gavin]

The monsoonal troughs certainly have had an impact this summer, lots of cloud, rain and of course humidity.

[HansE]

A popular subject, our first facination with what's out there. Looking forward to what we will see with the new telescope.

[Isac]

Nice shot Gavin. Good detail colour. For me I prefer the crescent moon shots to a full moon, they have more interest. I like to "shoot the moon" myself and wondering if you've ever used the "Looney-11" rule? Aperture at f/11 and ISO the same as the shutter speed. eg: F/11 - ISO 100 - Shutter 1/100th-second. It's just a starting point and if you open the aperture by a stop, you just double the shutter speed. There is another rule of thumb that states that your shutter speed shouldn't be lower than the reciprocal of your focal length. But, I'm sure vyou know all this

[Gavin]

Hi Isac, thank you for your comments. I'm not familiar with the "Looney-11" rule. I will try that when I take a shot of the first quarter on Wednesday, weather permitting. You lost me when you mentioned "the reciprocal of your focal length", but I will look that up. I want to learn as much as I can to take better shots.
Cheers
Gavin

[Isac]

Reciprocal just means the "same in return" or "same as", like Bob hits Jack, Jack reciprocates by hitting Bob. So in this situation it just means if your focal length is 400mm, your shutter speed should not be less than 1/400th of a second.

[Gavin]

Thanks for that Isac, so with the reciprocal of your focal length would you use that as an approximate starting point for most daytime shots and then factor in aperture and ISO?

[Isac]

Absolutely. BUT, it is only a starting point. My bird shots are usually at 400mm and start at 1/800 with auto ISO and in flight shots at 1/2000 +. If your shutter speed is less than the focal length then you need a tripod or a stable base for the camera.

[Gavin]

Hey Isac, that's very interesting and helpful. I'll certainly make a note of that and start putting it into practice. This site certainly motivates one to go out with the camera and shoot.
Thank you
Cheers
Gavin

[Isac]

You're welcome Gavin. I'm lucky I guess, I have a wonderful Cavoodle (Charlie) and he demands to be walked around our local lake every morning, so the camera is always on my shoulder. I love the place and the birdlife is great - different evry day. My gear is a bit average compared to yours but I do get a few keepers. I only use manual mode for stationery birds and ducks and shutter priority for birds in flight.

[Ozzie_Traveller]

G'day Gavin

As Isac says ... the business about 'what & how' with shutter speeds has been with us for many years ... and you are discovering it along with heaps of other stuff

Shutter speed selection will start to become easier with experience, and the so-called 'rules' will fall into place as you frame a shot and press the button. Here we are talking about 'the minimum shutter speed while hand-holding to roughly equal the focal length' -- and while it helps all of us daily, we also know that there are times when we lower it (if we want to show movement) or increase it (if we want to freeze movement)

Back in film days, we had to juggle speeds and apertures while locked into the ISO sensitivity of the 36 exposures of film we were using. Nowadays with electronic 'just about everything' we can have the ISO float up and down a bit inside the camera while we choose our speeds and apertures

Personally - my cameras are set as "ISO variable / auto mode from 100 (at the bottom) to 800-ISO (at the top) ... so as the camera offers me certain shutter speeds and apertures, if I want to alter and play, the camera will modify the ISO numbers to keep the exposure correct. Makes things a bit easier for an ol' bugga like me

Hope this helps
Phil

[Gavin]

Hi Phil, I appreciate all the feedback, it is so helpful, as at times it can become a bit daunting trying to remember all the processes. But I'm certainly enjoying the learning aspect of it and putting bits into practice.
Thanks again
Gavin