CV25/4 night shot

phillip · 02-24-2006

around 10pm, very foggy night
wide open, handheld at waist, 1 second

VinceC · 02-25-2006

Wonderfully moody.

dostacos · 02-25-2006

and wonderfully sharp too

cbass · 02-25-2006

Curious..was the camera's meter able to take a reading in that light or did you use the trusty "Moony 4" rule?

Nice photo. You have hands of stone!

Nikon Bob · 02-25-2006

Great shot. I would like to see that duplicated with an SLR. Another good reason to have a RF.

Nikon Bob

Steve B · 03-11-2006

[quote=cbass]Curious..was the camera's meter able to take a reading in that light or did you use the trusty "Moony 4" rule?

OK, this is a new one for me. I'm familiar with "sunny 16" but haven't heard of Moony 4. Is this just what it sounds like? Full moonlight at f4 at the reciprocal of the ASA/ISO? But thats only 4 stops below "sunny 16". Love to be educated here.

cbass · 03-12-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve B

OK, this is a new one for me. I'm familiar with "sunny 16" but haven't heard of Moony 4. Is this just what it sounds like? Full moonlight at f4 at the reciprocal of the ASA/ISO? But thats only 4 stops below "sunny 16". Love to be educated here.

Steve, it was my poor attempt at being silly.

There is no "moony 4" rule, I made it up. But if "moony 4" did exist it would work almost as you describe:

"Moony 4" -- full moonlight at the lens's minimum aperture (in this case f/4), exposure time 1 second. Must be hand-held.

Wait a second...is it possible that I may have inadvertently added a new piece of jargon to the pantheon of RF lexicon? Moony 4 could be right up there with bokeh, SBOOI and GAS!

Steve B · 03-12-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by cbass

Steve, it was my poor attempt at being silly.

There is no "moony 4" rule, I made it up. But if "moony 4" did exist it would work almost as you describe:

"Moony 4" -- full moonlight at the lens's minimum aperture (in this case f/4), exposure time 1 second. Must be hand-held.

Wait a second...is it possible that I may have inadvertently added a new piece of jargon to the pantheon of RF lexicon? Moony 4 could be right up there with bokeh, SBOOI and GAS!

Maybe it'll catch on if we start using it in an authoritative way, like everybody really should know what we're talking about. Hell, it worked on me.

tedwhite · 03-12-2006

Yes. Of course. I taught Moony 4 for several years. Nice sound to it, I must say.

Steve B · 03-12-2006

I think we should delete the "hand held" requirement as this, like "sunny 16" is basically an exposure guideline. "1 second, f4, full moon". I'll try some exposures and see if I can't back up your extensive teaching.

pvdhaar · 03-12-2006

The nice thing about night photography and very long exposures is that you almost can't get bad results w.r.t. exposure. No doubt a combination of low light and film reciprocity failure. If the sky is somewhat dark, it won't register no matter how long the exposure, while lamps and street lights will basically wash out for anything over 1 sec. The rest falls somewhere in between and won't wash out if you keep your exposure under 30secs or so.. It's exactly as the eye perceives it, in contrast to daylight photography where exposure is so critical..

Doug · 03-12-2006

"Moony 4" as defined doesn't factor in the film speed; should the shutter speed be, say 100 times the reciprocal of the ISO?

cbass · 03-13-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doug

"Moony 4" as defined doesn't factor in the film speed; should the shutter speed be, say 100 times the reciprocal of the ISO?

Sure, sounds good to me. Deleteing the hand-held requirement sounds good, too. But like most photographic rules of thumb, Moony 4 should be subject to more than one interpretation so that we can all "discuss" it later on.

Moony 4 takes into account each lesn's full-open aperture, so there could be a Moony 1.5, Moony 2, etc. I'm going to stick calling it Moony 4, though.

I'm now motivated to try some Moony 4 exposures while I'm in Paris at the end of the month. I'll post the acceptable results in my gallery.

Doug · 03-13-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by cbass

Sure, sounds good to me. Deleteing the hand-held requirement sounds good, too. But like most photographic rules of thumb, Moony 4 should be subject to more than one interpretation so that we can all "discuss" it later on.

There seems to be a lot of "discussable" judgement of the effect on Moony 4 by a less than full moon in a clear sky... Does a touch of haze, fog, or high clouds simply serve to soften the light without effect on exposure, and what happens with a 3/4 moon?

Steve B · 03-13-2006

Sunny 16 is full direct sunlight so I think Moony 4 should be full direct moonlight. A half moon could be adjusted by a factor to be determined? As in sunny 16 I think it should be based on clear skies with no fog or haze. That could also be factored in as in sunny 16. The full moon is tomorrow night (14th) so someone with a clear sky should go out with a meter, and maybe a camera, and see what they get.
Don't I remember a story about Ansel making a photograph and basing the exposure on the known luminence value of the moon?

Sparrow · 03-14-2006

If it’s any help as the moon itself is lit by sunlight, no cloud or haze so its correct exposure has to be f16 at 1/ISO, like anything else in daylight.
And yes I do feel bad about spoiling the fun

Doug · 03-14-2006

Stewart, photography ON the Moon must be box-camera heaven due to lack of atmospheric effects, except that the shadows are dark dark dark. Then when the Earth looms huge in its night sky, illuminating the moonscape, I suppose the exposure rule of thumb should be "Earthy 4"....

Sparrow · 03-14-2006

They only allow blads on the moon I think, I’ve always wondered how they got the detail in those shadow, notice the terra..bal recession

Steve B · 03-14-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sparrow

If it’s any help as the moon itself is lit by sunlight, no cloud or haze so its correct exposure has to be f16 at 1/ISO, like anything else in daylight.
And yes I do feel bad about spoiling the fun

I think that's a good rule for photographing the moon itself but I'm not sure it would apply to photographing some thing else that is illuminated by moonlight. Surely not all of the sunlight will be reflected by the moon. I think you would stop down considerably from f16 when photographing the sun itself for instance as oppossed to something illuminated by sunlight.
I'm sure this info is out there somewhere but I just don't know where it is. I hope someone has clear skies tonight, its cloudy here.

Sparrow · 03-15-2006

[quote]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve B

I think that's a good rule for photographing the moon itself but I'm not sure it would apply to photographing some thing else that is illuminated by moonlight. Surely not all of the sunlight will be reflected by the moon. I think you would stop down considerably from f16

Sorry lame attempt at humour, I wasn’t expecting daylight EVs at night!! in my notes I’ve written f8 at iso400, full moon 2 min, Hunters 5 min, Half 25 min, Quarter 150 min, if the moon is the only illumination, if I remember correctly the results were disappointing unlike us the colour film “sees” exactly the same at night so they came out like poor daytime pics, if its in a city wide open and two stops slower than I can hold seem to be the rule, my list says sunny 16 plus 5 to 8 stops

boilerdoc2 · 03-16-2006

For a perfectly exposed shot OF the moon when full and clear sky use 'Luni 11 Rule'. I.e. f 11 and 1/ISO. It works great. Half moon would be f8, 1/4 moon = f5.6. Be sure and do the 'B' word - bracket.
Steve