The moon-cloud experiment

All were taken with a 22mm focal length (the maximum zoom), focused at infinity, with (I think) the ISO set at 100. Mostly I was seeing what I'd get by playing around with the lens aperture and with the exposure time.

I started with lens aperture at F/7.1, a 1 sec exposure, and got:

I opened up the aperture to F/5.6, keeping other settings the same, and got:

I further opened the aperture to F/4, still 1 second (and same ISO), and compensated with a +0.7 overexposure, and got:

I reduced the aperture down to F/6.3, no exposure compensation, but extended the exposure to 4 seconds (yes), and got:

So, in the end, what I learned is that getting a brightly lit object and dimly lit objects in the same night sky to show up with decent detail on both is way more difficult than it might seem, and takes much more than fiddling with settings.

The moon and send-in-the-clouds experiment

On the left: the F stop (aperture) and shutter speed (exposure length);
on the right: the resulting shot.


F/5, 1/320 second

F/7.1, 1/200 second

F/7.1, 1/40 second

Moon-cloud experimentishness

Near-full moon obscured by clouds. Not that you can see any clouds other than the ones drifting in front of the moon, because getting any detail on the lunar surface keeps the rest of the sky too dark to see clouds.

And yes, the irony of obscuring the moon with the clouds is not lost on me.

Shadowy palms

Luna obscura

Perched

Gooder-er-night moon

Crescent moon (with improved detail over the previous attempts at capturing anything) from my balcony.




(For the curious: exposure 1/20 second, aperture F/5, ISO 100; manual focus at infinity. And then cropped down, but no software enhancement.)

(For the really curious: taken with Canon S3 IS on a flecpod tripod wrapped around the railing on my patio with focal length 72mm.)

Thirst

Drinking fountain by Angel's Flight in downtown L.A.

Sliver

Sliver of midday sun bends around the pillar holding up
the 4th St. bridge over Flower St. in downtown L.A.

Summer?

Autumn-type foliage in California Plaza, downtown L.A., with the One California Plaza tower in the background (reflecting the image of Two California Plaza).