Night/Moon Photography

[Bruce Osgood]

I expect to be in the Badlands of So. Dak. on May 13, the night of the full moon. Can someone suggest a book on photographing landscapes in this environment? I'm looking for really basic stuff: metering, compensation, etc. While the rules of daylight, landscape photography are probably the same for night time, Sunny 16, etc. don't seem to have a place in the semi-dark.

TIA,

 

[Anupam Basu]

Sunny 16, etc. don't seem to have a place in the semi-dark.

Sure it does, I think in terms of EVs and in terms of "stops below sunny-16." Check out http://www.fredparker.com/ultexp1.htm.

The real challenge is to hold texture in the moon which is almost at sunny 16 and still expose the landscape properly which will be about 17-20 stops below that.

-A

 

[Lee L]

Here's a good place to start:

http://home.earthlink.net/~kitathome/LunarLight/

Lee

 

[Sanjay Sen]

Bruce, for night photography I would suggest reading Andrew Sanderson's excellent book "Night Photography" (ISBN:0817450076).

 

[Carol]

Hi Bruce
Here is a link to a Night Photography site which has lots of useful information. http://www.thenocturnes.com/about.html

Apparently there is a Looney 16 rule for landscapes lit by a full moon which is 18 stops less than the Sunny 16 rule. - ISO 100 film at f/8 is 8 minutes approx.

I hope this helps and look forward to seeing some of your images.

 

[Bruce Osgood]

Thanks everyone, and Carol, I noticed APUGer Bill Schwab is represented on the Nocturnes site.
All good info to be had.

 

[Kirk Keyes]

Here's a good place to start:

http://home.earthlink.net/~kitathome/LunarLight/

I recommend this link too! Kit has been really helpful with me in the past and he has run a set of calculations for me for locations that I've requested. (If you see any calcs for Portland, OR, on his web site, those were for me.)