Accurate Moon imaging

[DonJbari]

Hi guys,

Was wondering which one of these images of the moon, if any, is the most accurate in terms of the colour/shade.

All images taken at slightly different exposures on ISO 100

Thanks

AJ

[Alien 13]

For me it would be the second one, nice images by the way.

Alan

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Number two for me as well. Note that if you don't shoot in raw format the camera does all sorts of non-linear stuff to the image. Using my planetary imaging cameras, or in RAW mode on the EOS 80D, I tend to get a bit more contrast

(this was with the EOS 80D and Celestron C8 with 0.63x focal reducer)

[vlaiv]

No such thing as proper shade. Let's leave color aside for the moment, that is different but related topic.

Our eye/brain combination perceives shade depending on environment around it.

Here is famous optical illusion that demonstrates this:

In above image squares marked with A and B actually have exactly the same shade of grey - although we can "clearly see" that it's not the case

You can either take that image and color picker to see what RGB values are - to make sure it is actually the same shade of grey, or you can have a look at this image instead:

Now back to your question - since we just saw that there is no proper shade - how to process your image? It's up to you as artist / skilled person (this is skill that can be learned) - to adjust contrast and brightness as to either bring out significant features/detail or to create particular "feel" of the image (dramatic, mellow, dreamy, ....).

I personally use first approach - use brightness / contrast and other tools to bring out, or point to particular details, rather than using them in "traditional photography" sense - to impact a mood or as a part of "story telling".

Btw, good images above

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

56 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

No such thing as proper shade. Let's leave color aside for the moment, that is different but related topic.

Our eye/brain combination perceives shade depending on environment around it.

Here is famous optical illusion that demonstrates this:

In above image squares marked with A and B actually have exactly the same shade of grey - although we can "clearly see" that it's not the case

You can either take that image and color picker to see what RGB values are - to make sure it is actually the same shade of grey, or you can have a look at this image instead:

Now back to your question - since we just saw that there is no proper shade - how to process your image? It's up to you as artist / skilled person (this is skill that can be learned) - to adjust contrast and brightness as to either bring out significant features/detail or to create particular "feel" of the image (dramatic, mellow, dreamy, ....).

I personally use first approach - use brightness / contrast and other tools to bring out, or point to particular details, rather than using them in "traditional photography" sense - to impact a mood or as a part of "story telling".

Btw, good images above

Agreed! To compound matters, what looks right on one monitor, may look totally off on another

[vlaiv]

1 minute ago, michael.h.f.wilkinson said:

Agreed! To compound matters, what looks right on one monitor, may look totally off on another

Quite so! To some extent can be mitigated by proper calibration of monitors. Important thing to note is that the same image can look rather different on the same monitor without changing anything on the image and monitor controls. Take any astro image and look at it on monitor in dark room (shades on, low levels of ambient light) and then do the same in broad daylight. Level of detail and contrast will be significantly different.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

4 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

Quite so! To some extent can be mitigated by proper calibration of monitors. Important thing to note is that the same image can look rather different on the same monitor without changing anything on the image and monitor controls. Take any astro image and look at it on monitor in dark room (shades on, low levels of ambient light) and then do the same in broad daylight. Level of detail and contrast will be significantly different.

Just simply look at the difference when surrounding an image with a white background or SGL's dark theme. The dark surroundings can make images look distinctly brighter