My Lunar Eclipse Experience

[Mike Lewis]

So I have shot lunar eclipses before, and as a general rule I find them to be one of those events that the camera does not do justice to. many images of the fully eclipsed moon just look like somewhat OOF (due to motion blur of the moon itself) images with wonky white balance (because of the accurate reddish color.) So this time I decided to try something new for me - try to make a composite image using HDR techniques that showed some detail in both the bright and dark portions of the moon. This idea proved to be largely a failure, but was a good learning experience, and along the way I did manage some serviceable moon images.

Lessons Learned

• My tracking mount is currently off-site in preparation for a semi-permanent mounting that should allow me to shoot deep sky astro stuff more often and accumulate longer integration times on specific targets. So I used a fix tripod. This proved to be a poor choice, as at my focal length of 600mm, even a 1 second image was blurring the moon due to the moon's motion across the sky. So for a future version of this attempt, I will use my tracking mount.
• I already knew the 5DSr is not a great high ISO camera. This was borne out in the higher ISO totally eclipsed images I shot trying to keep the shutter speed down to allow for less motion blur.
• This was the first try at using my Sigma 150-600mm Contemporary lens for any astro shots. Accounting for some motion blur and the inevitable seeing degradation prevalent this close to the mountains I thought it actually performed rather well.
• Using a gimbal mount for this type of shooting is a great improvement over a ballhead, especially with a long optic like the Sigma 150-600 at 600mm.
• My cold resistance is a rapidly deteriorating spec as I get older

Here are my keepers.

Full moon prior to the eclipse beginning (probably the best shot of the lot...)

LRCC_LunarEclipse_20190120_FW_TAP32479

• Mike Lewis
• Jan 21, 2019

Full moon, prior to total lunar eclipse, 2019-01-20

Partially eclipsed moon, exposed for detail in the light portion. The location and shape of the transition shows this to obviously be something other than a day/night terminator.

LRCC_LunarEclipse_20190120_FW_TAP32556

• Mike Lewis
• Jan 21, 2019

Partially eclipsed moon, total lunar eclipse, 2019-01-20

The best result (from a heavily edited single frame instead of a stack) version of the kind of image I was after. Not very good, but shows the potential if tracked images could be taken to reduce the motion blur effetcs...

LRCC_LunarEclipse_20190120_FW_TAP32593

• Mike Lewis
• Jan 21, 2019

partially eclipsed moon, total lunar eclipse, 2019-01-20

A total eclipse image, shot all the way up at 3200 ISO (not a good place to be with the 5DSr) in order to try to minimize motion blur. The stars are still trailed at 100% at 600mm. But a fun shot anyway.

LRCC_LunarEclipse_20190120_FW_TAP32764

• Mike Lewis
• Jan 21, 2019

total lunar eclipse, 2019-01-20

I will return to this idea in the future, hopefully with a camera that has a little less noise and with a tracked mount.

Any comments or critiques very welcome.

ML

 

[Ben Egbert]

Nice set, but the last one is the standout.

 

[JimFox]

It's interesting to see what you got Mike. I know some of my 600mm shots were blurry too, not so much from tripod movement I think, but somehow I just got the focus off a few times with the frequent moving of the 600mm lens as the moon would track out of the frame like every 4 or 5 minutes it seemed. But I did notice that the higher of an angle that I had to adjust the camera the harder it was to keep my ball head tight, and also there was a lot of movement when I tightened down the ball head. I am thinking that I will need to look into a new ball head to use just with that 150-600mm.

Anyway, as someone who was out like 6 hours in the freezing temps last night, I can appreciate what you went through. I like the progression you have shown here. I can totally relate to the difficulty of your #3 photo. I haven't yet tackled any of those, but I know I had to bracket from 5 to 8 stops to capture it all, and at the brightest as I mentioned in another thread the very thin clouds and moisture in the air caused a glowing halo around the bright part of the moon. So I am not sure how that will turn out for me in the end.

I agree with Ben, that I really like #4, but I think #3 looks really sweet too.

 

[AlanLichty]

Interesting read through your evening shooting exercise. I do like the results you got for shots #3 and #4.

I am highly familiar with the issues of moon movement since that murdered almost every shot I took last year when we had this event. I didn't have a chance to get out this time so hopefully I can learn more from write-ups like yours before the next opportunity comes around. I am a bit surprised at the low ISO issues with the 5DSr but that is the very reason I skipped that generation of the 5D body and went to the 5D Mk IV with the much wider dynamic range and better IQ. I decided that the higher resolution wasn't worth the tradeoffs.

 

[Bob Denton]

Very good photos.

 

[Mike Lewis]

It's interesting to see what you got Mike. I know some of my 600mm shots were blurry too, not so much from tripod movement I think, but somehow I just got the focus off a few times with the frequent moving of the 600mm lens as the moon would track out of the frame like every 4 or 5 minutes it seemed. But I did notice that the higher of an angle that I had to adjust the camera the harder it was to keep my ball head tight, and also there was a lot of movement when I tightened down the ball head. I am thinking that I will need to look into a new ball head to use just with that 150-600mm.

Anyway, as someone who was out like 6 hours in the freezing temps last night, I can appreciate what you went through. I like the progression you have shown here. I can totally relate to the difficulty of your #3 photo. I haven't yet tackled any of those, but I know I had to bracket from 5 to 8 stops to capture it all, and at the brightest as I mentioned in another thread the very thin clouds and moisture in the air caused a glowing halo around the bright part of the moon. So I am not sure how that will turn out for me in the end.

I agree with Ben, that I really like #4, but I think #3 looks really sweet too.

Thanks for the comments. I did not have any tripod movement issues to worry about, especially using the gimbal head I recently bought, which is a real help with the big 150-600. It was strictly moon motion across the sky, which does show up as subject blur. It is also really obvious on the trailed stars that show up in the final image of the fully eclipsed moon. And the smaller pixel pitch of the high MP sensor on the 5DSr shows this sort of thing pretty easily once it is there.

ML

 

[Mike Lewis]

Interesting read through your evening shooting exercise. I do like the results you got for shots #3 and #4.

I am highly familiar with the issues of moon movement since that murdered almost every shot I took last year when we had this event. I didn't have a chance to get out this time so hopefully I can learn more from write-ups like yours before the next opportunity comes around. I am a bit surprised at the low ISO issues with the 5DSr but that is the very reason I skipped that generation of the 5D body and went to the 5D Mk IV with the much wider dynamic range and better IQ. I decided that the higher resolution wasn't worth the tradeoffs.

Alan,

Thanks for the comments. The low ISO on the 5DSr is fine, but at the higher ISOs it does seem to show more noise than say the 5D MKIV or the new EOS R. Those cameras no doubt helped by larger pixels, but also I am sure from newer sensor tech too. I have loved my 5DSr especially for landscape, but I will be upgrading it to either the high MP EOS R family body when it comes out, or if that one is also higher ISO challenged, then perhaps with the existing EOS R instead.

ML

 

[Kurt Harrigan]

Very nice shot at the end with the stars. I can't see any star trails on my computer, fyi.

 

[Leslie Hunter]

Very good.