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A stranger at the Griffith Observatory changed how I see the moon
I was there last month trying to get a shot of the moon with my basic DSLR, feeling a bit stuck. An older guy with a huge telescope setup saw me and said, 'You're fighting the light pollution, kid. Try a 1/250 shutter, not what the auto mode says.' He let me look through his scope at the crater Tycho, and the detail was insane. I never realized how much you could pull out of a city sky with just a small tweak. What's the best piece of simple advice you've gotten from another stargazer?
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mason_fisher2mo ago
That tip about fighting light pollution is spot on. I learned to ditch the camera's auto white balance and set it to daylight or tungsten. It keeps the moon from looking like a weird orange blob and actually looks like moonlight.
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jana_jones1mo ago
My first attempt at night photography looked like I'd taken a picture of a streetlamp through a jar of honey. I went to this lake spot I found on Google Maps, followed the 20 minute rule, and still got a moon that looked radioactive. Turned out I'd left my phone flashlight on in my pocket the whole time, ruining my night vision for nothing. At least the pizza simile makes me feel better about my own cheesy disasters.
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ruby_henderson362mo ago
My uncle's advice was to just look UP more often, which sounds dumb but actually works. @mason_fisher has the right idea about white balance, my first moon shots looked like a cheesy pizza. The best simple tip I ever got was to let my eyes adjust for a full 20 minutes in total darkness, no phone light. You start seeing stars you didn't even know were there.
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