I keep pushing the iPhone 12 Pro Max and it keeps giving more
Pretty much everyone plays with automatic exposure to capture fantastic skies that no one can see with the naked eye.
I worked out how to take a shot of the moon at night. You have to fix the exposure and focus on a bright white street light. This allows you to capture just the moon exposed as you want. Then take a shot of the foreground with the moon which is too bright. Then you crop the moon from the first picture, adjust the brightness, and drop it over the blown out moon. It is a little more complicated than that. I am pretty pleased with the end result!
Is this an acceptable edit that I can post onto Google Maps?
Upfront, This is not me trying to bring about change for change sake. I have no vested interest in seeing this individual image posted through my Local Guide account. I was also amazed that I was able to get a quality shot of the moon on my iPhone - something I couldnāt do with a Fuji bridge camera 10 years ago.
Morten raises good points in considering whether or not the image meets the current guidelines. I will counter the reasons for not allowing it, because I think technology and user experience are forever changing and there may come a time when the guidelines need to be evolved. Your observations caused me to really think about my own conceptions about what might reasonably become acceptable in the future.
Manipulations needs to be minor: this is a subjective issue - once I had worked out how to make the change it was not a major bit of editing. I would be surprised if this wasnāt something that was possible by smartphone cameras within two years.
The definition of a collage is interesting: for ease of definition lets say it is two or more images used to create a single image. Bracketing is a common technique which involves the merging of multiple images to create a single image. This can be used to create a raw image which allows the manipulation of the photo to bring up the shadow detail and reduce the highlights (amongst other things). This could be used to create the effect that I created manually.
The moon is not part of the place and could be considered to be a distraction. Skies, sunsets, sunrises are part of the atmospheric features of a given location. The moon in the photo was in the exact location, with appropriate brightness and luminosity, that it should have been and is a correct presentation of a night sky on that particular day. It would not be unreasonable to say that it was slightly larger in the image than in the original - however if I used a longer lens then I would normally expect the moon to appear bigger relative to the foreground.
I did an unscientific poll about the image and asked some friends who didnāt know what I had done what the features of the picture were and they identified it is as a shot of Tesco store at night with a cashpoint.
The moon is actually how you would see it if you looked up at the sky with the naked eye.
I take a lot of night shots. Night shots are helpful for lots of reasons:
During the day these venues can often look bland, and it is only at night with the lights on that they have the enticing wow factor. (My star photo is of a Indian restaurant with 2.4M views - most food venues that open at night do well with night pictures.)
It also makes it easier to recognise a venue at night if you have seen a picture of it at night.
The Tesco picture:
Re-enforces the fact that the shop is open in the evening
It also shows that the cashpoint is in a well lit and safe space.
A night shot of a fairground would enhance the āvibā value of the picture
Whilst I donāt think that my points will lead to any change in the short term, I do think that we should keep reviewing whether the guidelines are remain appropriate, as the needs of the end user change evolve
I have lots of ideas and look forward to sharing them on the forums. However, I am also ware that I need to start of slow so that I hopefully generate a positive response to my posts.
Your feedback, especially as a āphotographerā, is especially welcome. In the last three years I have almost exclusively used my iPhone 12 Pro Max for all photography. It is so much more accessible. The biggest limitation is the lack of any substantial zoom capability. My Lumix bridge camera can zoom up to 1000x. Example video of the moon moving across the sky: https://www.facebook.com/nigelfreeney/videos/10210239725101098
Iām really not sure at all how you took or processed your cover photo but I like it, it looks really impressive @nigelfreeney . I myself do very little, if any, editing or processing of my photos before uploading them onto maps. Iām more a point and shoot type of amateur photographer.
I also like your Farewell to Summer 2017 video, showing the moon move across the screen, especially when the birds flew pastā¦ and stole the limelight. I also love taking moon shots and share this one.
Thanks for your extended reply. I think it really helps push the discussion in the direction you were hoping for.
I use a Huawei P30 Pro phone with some AI built-in to add extra details on the Moon! Actually, more details than the lens and cameras are able to see and record. I donāt know if your Iphone has something similar. My opinion would be that such technology should not be used for Google Maps where Maps users might be looking for information important to them and that we as photographers never thought of.
That said, I what to support your argument for revised guidelines over time. One example of this is the use of HDR which is certainly a form of bracketing. When done by the camera software it is already acceptable for use on photos uploaded to Google Maps. If I remember correctly the use of HDR is encouraged by Google for Streetviews photos.
I very often use HDR for my Google Maps photos. Feel free to inspect them here.
All the processing was done on the camera, an iPhone XS Max. I was shooting a series of pictures in the dark expecting to get silhouettes of the shore line and the boats. After I took the first image I realised that I could increase the exposure and end up with the picture that you saw on my Facebook page backdrop. So actually to a large extent this was a bit point and shoot
Your moon shot is great. I was a bit confused when I first looked at it - I thought it was upside down because the Tycho crater was at the top right. Of course you are in Australia so the moon view is reversed from what I see in the northern hemisphere.
The video was taken using a 1000x zoom on a Lumix bridge camera PZ72 with a lens adaptor, on a tripod of course. The full video is a bit longer and has three lots of birds flying across the image. I think it makes the video much more interesting
Thanks for your reply but am I right that in your first para you are explaining how you took the cover photo to your FB page and not the moon/Tesco cover in your Connect post which is what I was asking about?
Yes unfortunately you see an upside down moon from where you are in the northern hemisphere
I totally agree, the birds flying across make your video much more interesting. Well done!
Sorry for being late in this conversation, @nigelfreeney
In my opinion the rules are not helping too much, in this specific case. According to Photos and videos criteria :
Stylistic adjustments (such as applied filters) are acceptable, provided that these stylistic changes are minimal and are not appended elements such as borders, text, collaged images, etc.
Content that makes it difficult for others to understand the environment youāre sharing may be rejected.
Examples are excessively dark or blurry images, significantly rotated compositions, and use of filters that dramatically alter the representation of the place.
Images must be of a sufficient resolution. Exact requirements may vary by photo type and point of upload. Blurry, out of focus, or generally low quality photos/videos may be taken down or rejected.
The photo, however, is very āunnaturalā: The focus of the image is in the sign in the foreground, the sign in the background is out of focus, so our mind would expect the background of the image to be even more blurred. The fact that instead it is even more in focus than the foreground distracts the attention, which is shifted from the main subject (the shop) to the moon.
With a powerful zoom you could have stepped away from the subject and brought the whole scene into focus, and that would have made the image more natural.
The image below has not been retouched. However, Google Maps did not accept it.
In my defence you used the phrase ācover photoā, so I mistakenly thought you had decided to ask about my header image ā it sort of followed the topicā¦
Back to the question you asked
There are two pictures required for the end image:
The picture of the shop which needed to have the moon in it!
The moon taken at the same time using a trick exposure method.
The reason the moon needed to be in the shot of the shop was because I wanted to have the same light effects in the sky as the original moon.
The trick for getting the moon exposure was needed because my iPhone 12 Pro Max will not allow me to choose a fast enough exposure to limit the light which lets the detail be seen. This is achieved by zooming in on a bright white streetlight. (Any strong white light would do, like a strong LED torch. Of course, you should never look directly at the light from strong LED torches using you naked eye. Using the cameras display is safe for you and the camera.) I hold my finger over the brightest area on the phone display until I get the AE (Automatic Exposure) lock. This displays a clear yellow border box with a brightness slider to the right.
Next move the phone until the moon appears in the display. Then carefully drag the brightness slider down until you have the moon displaying the way that you want. This can be a bit of trial and error ā itās very easy to touch the screen away from the slider and cancel the lock exposure lock. If that happens you have to start again!
Then open the two photos in an image editor, I use Photoshop.
To get the brightness and luminosity to match the blown out moon I use the Brightness and Contrast tool.
The method I use to copy the moon onto the shop photo is covered in a YouTube video:
It would be straightforward to create a how-to explainer video if there was enough interest.
Cheers,
Nigel
p.s. at about this time yesterday I discovered that it is only the posts and not the comments that have auto saveā¦ and so I had to rewrite my reply from scratch.
Never too late (just put the wine and nibbles in the kitchen )
In terms of the inconsistent focus Iām not sure you are correct. If you look at the signage on the vets storefront, the telephone number is clear, along with the roofline, and the cloud edges. I think you may have mistaken the optical shimmer created by red and blue together as being out of focus. However, the focus isnāt really an issue as the image was only created to start a conversation ā¦ Oh, and to show off that I managed to capture a decent night shot of the moon on my smartphone
I love your picture. I would offer the likelihood that it was rejected by AI because it would have been seen as some sort of disconnected artwork. However, you have done a great job of capturing the image.
Can you share a link of the image at an higher resolution? Actually on your image is is quite difficult to understand that the gray text on the vet storefront is a phone number (here below a detail of your image at full resolution) bus this can be due to the fact that the photo has been resized a bit too much
Generally speaking, I love the idea of using the moon in the photos, as you can read in āThe Eagle has landedā - The moon on your stories , but I never tried to merge two photos to add a moon with a better resolution in a photo.
Night shots are indeed challenging, and not easy to capture, so you did it a great job in doing that
I really enjoyed your Eagle has Landed post. It resonated with me in my own enthusiasm for the moon as an object to photograph. Iām old to have cycled through that process 2-3 times
I have a number of favourite images that include a passenger jet high in the sky (This is a composite but I actually saw this picture but didnāt have my camera to hand), a crescent moon (I am fascinated by the crater detail between the light and the dark), a video of the moon moving across the sky (The original is longer and the birds appear appear more often), and a fiery red partial eclipse which I have added below. Another photographer produced a black and white photo without any land features, which was displayed in a gallery where I was selling some of my photos. I found it funny that I recognised that it had been hung upside down
Thanks @nigelfreeney for your detailed reply and explanation. I and Iām sure others would be interested in a post of yours with screenshots and/or video explaining the steps involved. Itās a very interesting topic.
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ā¦ Oh, and to show off that I managed to capture a decent night shot of the moon on my smartphone 
