Sigh. I braved the cold and went out on an 11pm walk tonight, about 1/2 of a mile down the road to where some horses were out in a field. I thought that with the near full moon and the glazed snow on the ground, I would be able to come up with a few interesting photos.
Pfft. I had my camera set to S with an ISO of 100. Yet despite the near full moon my photos of the horses in the field came out pure black. The shutter was going off pretty fast though. I couldn’t figure out how to manually adjust the shutter speed! I must be dense. I wish I had brought my camera manual with me.
This is what I got:
However, with those settings I was able to get an incredibly good shot of the moon:
If anyone would be so kind as to point me in the right direction for setting up good night shots, I’d be very grateful. I thought I had everything right, but apparently not!
Tomorrow I’m going to be steam cleaning the living room carpet. Sadly, this excites me.
Related posts:9 Comments
, on February 2 2008 at 1:17am:
Heh, the only reason I came home when I did is because I was starting to freeze! It was so cold. 
I felt bad for the horses being out.
, on February 2 2008 at 1:20am:
The best way to work a DSLR is to actually learn how to use a manual camera. Once you master about film speeds, it helps to go from there.
ISO of 100 is not that light sensitive, sure the pictures are going to have less grain but an iso of at least 1600 would of needed to work.
, on February 2 2008 at 9:50am:
I love the moon shot too. What is truly dense is my ability to use a camera. I so want to take good shots, and I need to master my camera so I can move up to a better model. Then, I’ll be the one going uh how do I do EVERYTHING?
, on February 2 2008 at 5:32pm:
What’s the cool green light to the left hand side, are they alien horses?
*love* the picture of the moon though!
, on February 2 2008 at 6:39pm:
Can’t you fix them up in Paint Shop Pro 8, or photoshop? I like the moon one! My camera has a night setting, but it sucks when I want to take a moon photo ><
, on February 2 2008 at 9:54pm:
Night settings never seem to work…my photos always come out blurry. I love the moon photo…why couldn’t it have been that clear around here on the night of the eclipse?!?!
, on February 2 2008 at 10:54pm:
Shoot RAW! Open the RAW file in Photoshop and up the exposure. Fixed! 
But yeah, 100 ISO is way to low for landscape night shots unless you choose a longer exposure and have a tripod handy. Next time try to jump up the ISO one setting at a time till you get the desired shot.
As the domain name suggests, my name is Jenn, and I own this blog. I'm 26 years old and married to my one true ♥, Daniel. And while I have two kids (Alyssa is five, and Ryan is three), you won't find "mommy" in my username or email address, nor does my blog revolve around them. I'm a mother, but most importantly I am me, with a passion for love, blogging, reading, and photography. I'm also a busy freelance writer, web designer & SEO goddess, and a blogger relations person for an adult toy company.
Oh, the simple things.
The picture of the moon is beautiful, so you should be happy about that and not fret the horses.
There will definitely be warmer nights to photograph the pretty horses, where you can sit out there all night if you have to. lol.