Full Composition of Lunar Eclipse
It required approximately eight hours of work today (not including all the time spent preparing my gear and shooting), but I managed to put together a full composition of last night's supermoon lunar eclipse (photo below).
This composition is comprised of twelve images... eleven shots of the moon as it rose into the starry sky (chosen out of approximately 300 images I shot)... and one shot of the starfield which was in the background of this rare show. The final composition is 6000 x 4800 pixels which would make a beautiful high resolution 8"x10" print. If necessary and if I desired, I suppose I could even produce a high resolution 16"x20" print of this composition.
My original plan was to try to capture a few good images of the eclipse. I had never shot an eclipse before so I was prepared for problems and I tried to keep my goal simple. I kept saying to myself, "I'll be happy with just a few good images of the blood red eclipsed moon."
Even as Sheila and I were watching this event as I was shooting away, I was telling Sheila that it would be cool to have a series of images to show the moon as it rose into the night sky and progressed into the eclipse... I honestly didn't think I'd be capable of producing this type of composition my first time attempting to shoot this type of difficult scene though. I was expecting problems...
...and... I encountered problems, as expected.
My biggest problem turned out to be trying to attain accurate focus. As bright as the moon is in the sky on most nights (much brighter than people think which is why most of the photos of the moon that you see show just an out-of-focus white blob), an eclipsed moon loses a tremendous amount of light. This meant I would need to try to attain accurate focus in the dark and manually since there is no way for autofocus to work in the dark.
If you've ever handled a camera with a long telephoto lens, you'll know that aiming and focusing is a difficult task. Just tiny amounts of movement will move the moon out of your view. Compounding these difficulties is the fact that the moon is tiny and so far away. Miraculously, most of my shots were keepers though. I was shocked! (I guess I've shot enough moon photos over the years to learn through experience.)
On the other hand, the images I shot while controlling the camera with my Kindle Fire tablet, however, were kind of lousy. Attaining accurate focus by touching the tablet's 8.9" screen proved to be frustrating and a 'hit or miss' proposition (mostly miss) because the moon was so tiny on the big screen. My focus box was larger than the moon which mean that sometimes (many times, really) the focus was just somewhere out in the distance leaving the moon distinctly out of focus! After struggling with about twenty shots, I switched back to using my little wireless remote. That worked beautifully. Plus, I was then able to shut off my camera's wifi antenna which saved battery power.
In hindsight, I wish I had more appropriate equipment for this type of stuff including for other non-eclipse astrophotography. (I still want to get out and shoot some Milky Way shots!) I managed to make my equipment work though so I shouldn't complain.
The key here was knowing my equipment... knowing the limitations... knowing how to effectively set all the camera's features and functions... and knowing that the best camera is the camera you have with you... education first, then improvise, adapt and overcome.
So, here is the composition, below. I'd like to say this is the 'final' composition but, I know that when I look at this in the morning, I'll probably see a few things I want to change. A lot of things about me have changed and evolved through my disabilities but I guess I'll always be a perfectionist.
This composition is comprised of twelve images... eleven shots of the moon as it rose into the starry sky (chosen out of approximately 300 images I shot)... and one shot of the starfield which was in the background of this rare show. The final composition is 6000 x 4800 pixels which would make a beautiful high resolution 8"x10" print. If necessary and if I desired, I suppose I could even produce a high resolution 16"x20" print of this composition.
My original plan was to try to capture a few good images of the eclipse. I had never shot an eclipse before so I was prepared for problems and I tried to keep my goal simple. I kept saying to myself, "I'll be happy with just a few good images of the blood red eclipsed moon."
Even as Sheila and I were watching this event as I was shooting away, I was telling Sheila that it would be cool to have a series of images to show the moon as it rose into the night sky and progressed into the eclipse... I honestly didn't think I'd be capable of producing this type of composition my first time attempting to shoot this type of difficult scene though. I was expecting problems...
...and... I encountered problems, as expected.
My biggest problem turned out to be trying to attain accurate focus. As bright as the moon is in the sky on most nights (much brighter than people think which is why most of the photos of the moon that you see show just an out-of-focus white blob), an eclipsed moon loses a tremendous amount of light. This meant I would need to try to attain accurate focus in the dark and manually since there is no way for autofocus to work in the dark.
If you've ever handled a camera with a long telephoto lens, you'll know that aiming and focusing is a difficult task. Just tiny amounts of movement will move the moon out of your view. Compounding these difficulties is the fact that the moon is tiny and so far away. Miraculously, most of my shots were keepers though. I was shocked! (I guess I've shot enough moon photos over the years to learn through experience.)
On the other hand, the images I shot while controlling the camera with my Kindle Fire tablet, however, were kind of lousy. Attaining accurate focus by touching the tablet's 8.9" screen proved to be frustrating and a 'hit or miss' proposition (mostly miss) because the moon was so tiny on the big screen. My focus box was larger than the moon which mean that sometimes (many times, really) the focus was just somewhere out in the distance leaving the moon distinctly out of focus! After struggling with about twenty shots, I switched back to using my little wireless remote. That worked beautifully. Plus, I was then able to shut off my camera's wifi antenna which saved battery power.
In hindsight, I wish I had more appropriate equipment for this type of stuff including for other non-eclipse astrophotography. (I still want to get out and shoot some Milky Way shots!) I managed to make my equipment work though so I shouldn't complain.
The key here was knowing my equipment... knowing the limitations... knowing how to effectively set all the camera's features and functions... and knowing that the best camera is the camera you have with you... education first, then improvise, adapt and overcome.
So, here is the composition, below. I'd like to say this is the 'final' composition but, I know that when I look at this in the morning, I'll probably see a few things I want to change. A lot of things about me have changed and evolved through my disabilities but I guess I'll always be a perfectionist.
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