Mt. Rainier and Lenticular Clouds - Dec. 2008 copyright: JMM

September 29, 2007

Shoot the Moon

Did you all have a chance to see the beautiful full harvest moon the other night? Try as I might, I just can't take a good full moon picture. It looks great in the viewfinder but ends up looking like a spotlight in the finished photo. Even though I had my camera on the tripod, it still shook when I pressed the shutter button.

My old Pentax K-1000's shutter button has a place where you can screw in a remote shutter cable, and I've been able to take much better and less blurry photos with that. However the new cameras don't have a place to screw in the remote cable, not even on my Pentax Z-XM. Plus I can adjust the aperture and shutter speed on the K-1000, something I can't do with my digital camera.


17 comments:

  1. For any remote shutter release I use the self-timer so that there's no chance of vibration from my hand. You can even do this with snapshot cameras that don't have a remote shutter to get better results.

    Are you sure your Z-XM doesn't have a port for a shutter release? It may be an electronic one unlike the screw-into-the-shutter button type like the K1000.

    All the new whiz-bang stuff these days is truly remote, as in wireless, and always "sold separately," as in expensive.

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  2. What O'Tim said....?

    They look fine to me, well done.

    With my old SLR, in the days when I understood f-stops etc, I once took pictures on a tripod, with the remote, of the moon over wet rooftops. Some of them came out REALLY well. I have no idea where they are now. :(

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  3. O'Tim - Thanks for the tip! I will try this. I never even thought to use the timer!! And I'll have to check the Z-XM too.

    Val - If you dig them out I'd love to see them!

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  4. Anonymous2:37 PM

    Yes, I did. It was SO clear, you could even make out some of the lines and stuff on the surface. Your pix look fine to me too!

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  5. Your photo's look great to me.I didn't even think to look so thank you for sharing :-)

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  6. Oooh, Jojo, you are a damn good photographer, babe! And of all things, the Moon....I love staring at it when I see it here and of course, I bay.

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  7. Anonymous10:19 AM

    julie...

    What can I say? Amazing as always, you are, Jo.

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  8. they are great pics joj. we did see it on the way up north. i took a couple pics too, but by the time i got to a plzce where i could, it was much farther up and not nearly as gorgeous.

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  9. I didn't see it :( I think your pictures look great JoJo!

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  10. Found the pictures, JoJo, and they are not quite as I remembered. There's the moonlight on the wet roofs, but no moon.

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  11. Oh, and I played with the timer, too, and have lots of posed piccies of me doing absurd-looking things.

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  12. That was a hella cool looking moon.

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  13. you must be a perfectionist
    because those pics are stunning...
    I can even here Axe howling

    sorry, that was the dog next door

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  14. Thanks Ann. A bitch is a bith, huh?

    ***Heee-hee-hee***

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  15. Pretty.Reminds me I should go out at night more.

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  16. Axe: toooooo funny!!!!!

    Marble

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