Taking cool pictures

[college4christ81]

Hello!! I got a digital camera for Christmas, but I am in need of some advice. First the instruction book that came with the camera is lacking I feel in some things, are there books that could help me? Second I would love to take some really cool pictures, such as of the moon, the sun, stars and what not. The problems are that, with the moon I can't hold the camera still enough, with the sun I can't find a place where I can get a clear shot, and with stars I am afraid it will be like taking pictures of the moon which is hard. Any advice would be welcomed. The camera I got is a cool pix nikon 4800

 

[waitingforwonderful]

Most importantly, understand that taking pictures of the sun/moon/stars with ANY camera is tough. The really good pictures of them that you see are taken with super, super expensive camera equipment. So don't be disappointed if your pictures don't turn out as you hope!

 

[Piano Player]

All you want are the Sun, Moon and the Stars? Same thing I want out of life!

Sun. Lots of opportunity here. Any picture taken into the sun will be dramatic, and problamatic. Digital photography has a limited contrast range (film too for that matter) that makes it easy to "blow out" the sun and have no detail anywhere else. Graduated filters and partially blocking the sun are possilbe solutions. This is not a good place to start photography. However, if you get good at it, pictures can have special dramatic effect.

Moon. Easier, but will require a longer lens and a tripod. You will never hold the camera steady enough so always put the camera on a tripod. Exposure--if you have a manual system--is pretty easy for a full moon. The moon is nothing more than a sunlit 18% grey surface so follow the "sunny 16" rule. That is for a neutral grey exposure the right settings are F16 at 1/ISO speed. You see some pictures like this where the moon details are positively grey. Since we view the moon at night, our subjective impression is that the moon is "glowing." To make your moon picture "glow" try overexposing the sunny 16 rule by two stops or so. (This is how the Ansel Adams zone system works). Done correctly, your moon will "glow" but still retain detail so it doesn't just look like a white ball. A sucessful picture I once took involved taking a double exposure. First I took a picture of the moon (using the glowing sunny 16 rule) with a 300mm lens. (Film speed was 25 so I used 1/60th second at f11) Since I "previsualized" the picture I put the moon in that part of the frame where I wanted it to appear. The second exposure for 30 seconds or so, placed the building where I wanted it in relationship to the moon. The CEO of the builiding bought the picture at auction, and hung it in her office.

Stars. Complicated if you want clear sharp pictures of stars. Astrophotographers have a special device that moves your camera in opposition to the earth's spin for the long exposures needed to get faint stars. Something you could easily do is to take pictures of "Star Trails." Put camera on a tripod, open lens for a really long time (hours sometimes), and point in the general direction of the North Star. All other stars will form concentric streaks around the north Star.

 

[mrcrow]

use a tripod
remember although you see the moon at night its exposure is for daylight settings...or it will come burnt out on your image...
ie set your camera on manual and use daylight setttings...ermmmmmmm does that make sense...
or take spot readings off the moons surface...dooooohhhh this is not easy to tell...
stars move so dont use too long exposures...which you may have to...as the stars will blur....really for astronomical photography you need to track the object even for a few seconds...
best of luck though
ps
i only got a few decent results of moons usually at moon rise when there is daylight still around.