Telescope Eyepieces and filters

A nice image Tej, part of the learning process.  When I used to use film I always studied the bad shots to learn how I could improve.  Mike is right about opinion. As Jen Luc Picard said to Data the value in a picture is in how it makes us feel. It is our interpretation which is important.

Oh Lovely image, Tej!
I can't see the first one anymore though...

Did you manually press the shutter trigger for hours? Why did you say a timer was not necessary?

Thanks Brian and Sumitra. Oh I didnt mean the timer wasn't neccessary, I've used the intervalometer for my cricket match timelapses! But here I thought I try keep the lighting as consistent as possible as the moon rise and sun sets. So I kept changing the shutter speed to maintain a consistent histogram as best I can, I dont think I can do that while I have the automatic timer set so hence why I was clicking manually all the way!

But its a bit of a mess anyway as I ended up experimenting with all sorts of settings,lol. I'll still put it up anyway so you you and Mike can teach me 🙂

One thing I wanted to do was expose to the right but I cant get that histogram to go anywhere near the right? I need to read up on how you did it again, Sumitra.

Thanks Brian and Sumitra. Oh I didnt mean the timer wasn't neccessary, I've used the intervalometer for my cricket match timelapses! But here I thought I try keep the lighting as consistent as possible as the moon rise and sun sets. So I kept changing the shutter speed to maintain a consistent histogram as best I can, I dont think I can do that while I have the automatic timer set so hence why I was clicking manually all the way!

But its a bit of a mess anyway as I ended up experimenting with all sorts of settings,lol. I'll still put it up anyway so you you and Mike can teach me 🙂

One thing I wanted to do was expose to the right but I cant get that histogram to go anywhere near the right? I need to read up on how you did it again, Sumitra.

Oh I didnt mean the timer wasn’t neccessary, I’ve used the intervalometer for my cricket match timelapses! But here I thought I try keep the lighting as consistent as possible as the moon rise and sun sets. So I kept changing the shutter speed to maintain a consistent histogram as best I can, I dont think I can do that while I have the automatic timer set so hence why I was clicking manually all the way!

Wow but that must have been tedious to do for hours!!
As I understanding it for a timelapse, you'd not want to keep changing settings but be on full manual and impose a setting to be used throughout your timelapse. Otherwise this can cause unpleasant flickering in your movie.
Or perhaps you were going to use a software to smooth out the lighting difference throughout?

One thing I wanted to do was expose to the right but I cant get that histogram to go anywhere near the right? I need to read up on how you did it again, Sumitra.

I'm surprised you did not manage to get anywhere near to the right with Luna being up in the sky?? That would have been undesirably too easy to do even...
I think anyway you would want to try an ETTR without the moon in the sky. What I did was 30seconds + ISO 12,800 on a moonless night. It was already to the right with 30seconds + ISO 6,400.

Let me know if that helps?

I’m surprised you did not manage to get anywhere near to the right with Luna being up in the sky?? That would have been undesirably too easy to do even…
I think anyway you would want to try an ETTR without the moon in the sky. What I did was 30seconds + ISO 12,800 on a moonless night. It was already to the right with 30seconds + ISO 6,400.

Let me know if that helps?

Yeah I was surprised too. But here is a snapshot of what my histogram shows. You can see my camera settings on the EOS Utility on the left, the image on the Live View is of my computer screen showing one of my old pictures of the moon outside my window! So you see the settings are maxed out at 12800 and 30 sec exposure but the image did not actually overexpose past the 1/5 sec mark as I would expect it too. Although this is just an image of my computer screen, this was the same result I was getting outdoors at the night sky.

See the "Sim. Exp" above the histogram? (Edit: oh no you cant see it, the screengrab was taken while it blinked off!) This starts flashing on/off after the 1/5 shutter speed mark (so when shutter is less than this the "sim. Exp" symbol stays in a steady state). SO it seems my camera is preventing over-exposure somehow. Its a manual lens, camera is in manual mode.

Any ideas?!

Wow but that must have been tedious to do for hours!!

Tedious 4 hours and frozen to that of an icicle! I forgot to mention a doggie came up to me with a ball in his mouth and wanted me to play. Dropping the ball so I can pick it up and throw it. I didnt pick up the ball because I wanted the doggie get away from my tripod but then he started barking for me to pick up the damn ball. So I did. Part of my mind wanted to throw it in the river but he was cute so I threw it afar. Natrually he ran for it picked it up and came back. What to do? SO I started ignoring the doggie again and as if it knew I was doing photography he weaved in and out of my tripod as if to threaten my progress unless I play with him...thankfully the owner came by and called his doggie away...damn dog...cute though!

As I understanding it for a timelapse, you’d not want to keep changing settings but be on full manual and impose a setting to be used throughout your timelapse. Otherwise this can cause unpleasant flickering in your movie.
Or perhaps you were going to use a software to smooth out lighting difference throughout?

Yeah I expect flickering but this is my first moonrise timelapse, I just thought to do it this way to understand for myself how the exposures differ during the moonrise. Otherwise I would be guessing blindly if I fixed at one exposure setting. Just a beginners step to understanding timelapse for me 🙂

See the “Sim. Exp” above the histogram? (Edit: oh no you cant see it, the screengrab was taken while it blinked off!) This starts flashing on/off after the 1/5 shutter speed mark (so when shutter is less than this the “sim. Exp” symbol stays in a steady state). SO it seems my camera is preventing over-exposure somehow. Its a manual lens, camera is in manual mode.

Any ideas?!

"Sim.Exp" doesn't affect metering, it just alters the brightness of the display to correspond with how the image is likely to look, and metering does what it does regardless.

As regards the flashing on/off, Canon help states the following:

If the ‘Exp.SIM’ is flashing it is probably because you are shooting in very bright or dark conditions, thus indicating that the image shown on screen will differ from that captured

If you've set your camera to ISO 12800 and 30 second exposure, with the aperture pretty wide... in London, I'd expect to see a completely blown-out exposure. Exposure simulation isn't going to work for this, so your "pre-shot" histogram is probably not telling you what the final image will look like. You need to take a shot, and then look at the histogram, and adjust from there.

Oh so I cant use Live view histogram then for over exposed settings, pity. It also looks like the Canon Utilities software doesnt allow me to see the histogram of a test shot only of the live view which is a shame. I know I can do it on the LCD of the camera but its so much easier controlling the camera from my laptop. But I can do it on the camera, it works on there but will try find another software that can quickly show me a histogram of a test shot.

Thanks Mike.

Aaaah! That explains it! I was really confused when you said you had not managed to get one.
I had got a completely washed out White/Yellow image from light polluted Nice, even without the full moon at 30sec exp ISO 6,400, so I was quite confused how that did not happen in London with the full moon!

Re the Dog... glad you didn't throw him in the river! O_O
You could have tied a red torch to his neck to get some strange patterns in your long exposures :p

I understand better why you kept changing the settings, I did not realise it was you first moon timelapse!
These timelapses (Sunrises/sets Moonrises/sets are especially hard to do given the high differences in light conditions!