The star, Spicus, and a red Moon. Total Lunar Eclipse from Mendoza, Argentina, 2014
Most people, me included, had inadequate gear for photographing this morning’s total lunar eclipse.
(Insert Note: Point of debate, this. What does it really mean to say our equipment is “inadequate”? Is it really? What is the end effect we are looking for? Isn’t that the key? If so, the gear may or may not be “inadequate”.)
Anyway, back to my debatable theme…
As I watched the eclipse slowly play out from our fifth floor balcony, I noticed these flashes coming from other rooftops, the streets, and front yards around and below…sure enough, folks were capturing the event with their point-and-shoots set on auto, flash still enabled.
I won’t actually laugh about it though as I later saw the result from one of these newer, small cameras and it really wasn’t bad–not just the pinpointy whitish blob I expected…there was actually form, texture and color! (Even though the flash didn’t quite traverse the entire quarter million miles…)
In my case, I was a bit better equipped for the job, although marginally so: a sturdy tripod, a 70-200 f/4 lens, and a lot of cropping ability with the D800’s 36 megapixels. A 600mm lens for the night would have been the E.T.’s knees!
For nearly all of the images I recorded, I kept the ISO at 100, set the aperture at f/5.6 (lens sweet spot), and moved the shutter speed manually to get the exposure right. I also focused manually–mostly with the viewfinder, but also experimenting with live view.
Astrophotography isn’t really my thing, but it was a fun celestial event to simply attend and to watch unfold…slowly…slowly…slowly.
Oh, and here is what the prelude looked like before that famous red Moon…
Lunar Eclipse Begins. Mendoza, Argentina, 2014
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