It's a difficulty if you win!

The thing to do is let me know so that alternative arrangements can be made, or just don't enter that round.

You've positioned the trains nicely, leaving just a little room for them to carry on into the frame.

The second one is better lit and is an excellent picture. I get the feeling that in both cases though you are leaning slightly to the right. It's simple enough in Photoshop or similar to rotate the image slightly to compensate.

The first one is a but dark, but a tweak in Levels or Curves should solve that.

As regards sharpness, they look pretty good to me, but then this is a small file size so it can be difficult to judge. Foe maximum DOF, ensuring all the train in focus, then the point of focus should be about a third of the way along the length of the train, using a small aperture of maybe f11.

If this makes the shutter speed a problem, then the ISO can always be increased. It's there to be used.

Hope that helps!

This is the middle image with absolutely nothing done to it apart from resizing for web:
[IMG]http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff250/johnriley1uk/013-Ripon-Unmodified.jpg[/IMG]
Don't forget this is no more the "correct" exposure than any other, but it is the one taking the meter reading as is.

If I remeber corrctly this was seven JPEG images shot a stop apart. So they would have been exposed at -3, -2, -1, 0, +1, +2, +3

Dark Frame Subtraction is the culprit. With very long exposures the camera makes a second exposure in the dark and uses the noise pattern on that to subtract similar noise from the actual image.

This means that the exposures take at least twice as long whilst the camera goes through this process.

Tripods are often the culprit. You need a very heavy solid tripod to be sure there is absolutely no movement.

This becomes most critical in very long distance work (as here) and critical macro work.

The moon moves quite quickly, so a reasonably high shutter speed is needed, or a motorised mount that keeps track with it.

It doesn't matter if there is a tremor in the camera as long as the tremor occurs after the exposure is over. Using the 2 second delay is good as the mirror rises, everything has time to stabilise and then the only movement is the actual shutter itself, which is virtually nothing.

A very sturdy tripod is needed though and many are just not much good with very long lenses and/or heavier DSLR cameras.

I don't do much HDR, but I think architectural shots quite suit the technique. All comments welcome!
[IMG]http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff250/johnriley1uk/003-Ripon-Cathedral-1.jpg[/IMG]

Sue and I both use the Billingham Hadley Pro for general trips out and about.

In the studio something bigger may be necessary, but the bulk doesn't matter there.

For me the criteria are ease of access and a compact size. I travel as light as possible.

HDR means the photographer takes up to seven different exposures maybe 1 stop apart, from under to over exposed. These are then combined in a program like Photomatix so that detail is present from the deepest shadow to the brightest highlight.

The effect can be superb, but is often overdone.