Home Forums Gear Photography How about some tips for shooting the upcoming Super Blood/Blue moon?

Found this link and thought I'd post here for feedback and to see some member examples of Super/Blood/Blue moon pics! Hopes this helps some get started with such a cool opportunity coming up.....

How to photograph the Super Blue Blood moon? Veteran photographer David Noton shares tips

I found this calculator for exposure that may be of help for some:
http://www.adidap.com/2006/12/06/moon-exposure-calculator/

Tripod, cable release so you don't touch the camera, mirror up&electronic shutter (or exposure delay if no electronic shutter curtain), spot meter on the moon and look at histogram for exposure, turn off the IS/VR. The moon is a moving object so use at least a 1/125 sec shutter speed.

The blood moon will be low on the horizon, max about an hour before sunrise here in Arizona, so I am trying to find a good windmill to put against it.
I am going to use my 200-500mm @ 500mm, f/8 (my lens is max sharp at f/8), 1/250 sec, auto ISO, in manual mode for starters. Will be using manual focus so the AF does not hunt.

From the eclipse in 2015, I took this image at 550mm, f/6.3, 0.8sec, ISO 2500. A faster shutter speed would have been better as one can see some slight star trailing and the moon moves faster hence blurred some.

I am going to have to get a remote trigger

I have yet to get a good picture of the moon.

If ones unit has the ability, he might do a setup whereby it shoots an exposure right on, maybe 1/2 stop low, and 1/2 stop high.

Also, do time increments on entry and exit for a consistent capture of the phases.





Cookie simply let her camera do the metering for these.

What was the camera/lens?

Made it out this morning after finding a windmill yesterday.
Nikon D810, 500mm, f/5.6, 1/15sec, ISO 3200
I would have liked a faster shutter speed, but would have needed to increase the ISO and resulting noise.

Neat photo with the windmill

I tried some full moon photos but the moon was completely washed out. I tried experimenting with different shutter speeds and apertures but they were all washed out

I shot at it with my 06 but could not tell if I hit anything. miles

Me too. It looked clear at first but I noticed there was actually some very thin/whispy cloud cover when I was out. Not sure what that would do but I think it was messing with my focus.

Doug, that pic with the windmill/moon is fantastic! Framing it like that made it 100x more interesting that just a regular moon pic. I'm taking notes.....

RedRabbit:
Nice composition!
Cookie's on the prowl for some of those working corrals with enough arched gates for about a 6-way sort. Wants to capture the moon and stars through that setting and title it "Gateway to Heaven."

She did some moon shots, but we're yet to download. Had to deal with some faint clouds here.

Cookie had to fight some whispy clouds with the recent event, and was not too happy with her products. She was set up on our second story deck and that's not the most stable of platforms either. Here's on example:
Canon EOS 50D, Canon 500m + 1.4 extender so essentially a 700mm, a 1.6 crop can also be interpreted as a 1,120mm, F5.6, at 1.6sec

Seems a little short on detail. I think she should dump the extender to get a bit more shutter speed.


Sorry about being so late getting this up

1' The moon and corrals would be neat for Cookie to shoot. On her moon image, I think the moon may have moved a lot in 1.6 sec and that induced the blur. What was her ISO?

RedRabbit:

Sorry, had to go look that up. ISO=500. Probably would not hurt to crank that up a bit.

Yes, I do see some slight vertical movement in a star that's showing down close to about 06:45 relative to moon center. I'll go through her string and use that as a reference point to sort of index motion of the scene.

Have a good one,

Edited:

I found a few images that had shutter speeds down to as low as 1/6 sec. Those show a little less trailing in the surrounding stars, and they all index movement in about a 160 degree direction assuming the top of the image is north. Have never used any of the Photoshop features in an attempt to remove motion blur. The trailing would at least be a good index of direction. Have you ever given that a try? We're not much for post processing sort of feeling that garbage in is garbage out.