A couple of shots from last night. My first try at this with my K-50.





Sky was perfectly clear for once.

[micromacro]

Nice! You were lucky with clear sky.

[45 Mike]

I wanted to shoot, but haze and high clouds made pictures problematic. I could see it, but it was very soft with the haze.
You got nice shots!

[jimr-pdx]

One of those 'stars' below the moon is supposedly Uranus; it should be greenish-grey which implies the brighter one in both shots.
I have a few shots to look over also.

[Ex Finn.]

Looks very good. TFS.

[Storm Chaser]

Tedw nice shot, was out and had clear weather but alot were out of focus, have a few keepers. What settings and lens were you using? I should have had alot more usable shots, not sure what was going on! But nice one there.

[Roypercy]

Beautiful! The horizon was too cloudy in New York by the time the eclipse would have been visible here.

[TedW]

Thanks Storm. I tried to keep the ISO low (800 or 400) and shot with 3 seconds at around f7.1. I noticed that things were looking out of focus but soon realized that 3 seconds is too long and creates blur from the moons movement. It has the appearance of making it look out of focus when in reality it is movement blur.

So I changed to a 1.5 second exposure and upped the ISO to 1600. I think these were shot at f7.1 using my Sigma 70-300mm zoom. I was fully zoomed into at 300mm. The shorter shutter speed turned out to be the key. The noise wasn't too bad at 1600 and I tweeked it with the Topaz Noize plug in and then sharpened the detail a bit using the Topaz Detail plugin. But out of the camera they were still pretty nice.

lastly I shot in both jpg and raw. The first picture is jpg and the second raw. I didn't see a lot of difference in quality. I'm still undecided on the whole raw vs. jpg and this was just another chance to examine both options.

I would never have guessed that 3 seconds would be long enough to create blur from the movement of the moon.

Other setting that helped me were to set for center spot exposure and place that right in the middle of the moon. I the display to turn off so I could look through the viewfinder without being blinded. I found out that you can still push the play button and the last picture will come up on the display so I could zoom and review the historgram. The zoom is what keyed me into the fact that things were sharper at 1.5 seconds.

Of course I used a tripod. I also set the shutter release for a two second delay to allow the camera to settle from the mirror movement and this also shuts off the image stabilization which isn't needed. Some say the image stabilization on a tripod can create other problems but I don't know one way or the other.

That was pretty much it. Surprising also how dark the moon becomes. I can shoot at around 1/500 for an ordinary full moon.

---------- Post added 10-09-14 at 12:15 PM ----------

Jimr, I didn't know that about Uranus. I did a little research and it seems that it is pretty likely Uranus is the "star" at 8 o'clock.

One of those 'stars' below the moon is supposedly Uranus; it should be greenish-grey which implies the brighter one in both shots.
I have a few shots to look over also.

[dually13]

Your shots look way better than mine. I couldn't get focused. Yours look great. I wish these events would happen more often so i can practice more.

[Lauzi]

Hey Ted,

great shots of the moon.
Did you use any filters?
I tried once to take a picture of the moon (although no zoom lens) and the moon became too bright in my picture.

thanks for sharing

[TedW]

Hey Ted,

great shots of the moon.
Did you use any filters?
I tried once to take a picture of the moon (although no zoom lens) and the moon became too bright in my picture.

thanks for sharing

No filters at all. I have a UV filter on most of the time but it was so calm and clear out I took it of for this series.

[45 Mike]

Hey Ted,

great shots of the moon.
Did you use any filters?
I tried once to take a picture of the moon (although no zoom lens) and the moon became too bright in my picture.

thanks for sharing

Moon is kinda counter intuitive, unless you reason it out.

The subject is reflecting about 1/2 the light it is getting from direct sunlight.
If you follow sunny 16, then for ISO 100 film, in direct sun, correct exposure would be 1/100th at f;16
Now, we look at that and if 1/2 of the light is being reflected, then correct exposure would be 1/100th at f:11

If you look at the exif data on good moon shots most will be quite close to that exposure value.

Quarter moon, and half moon will use slightly more exposure, 1/2 to full stop more. Reason it out and it makes sense.

Good luck!! Keep trying!

[TedW]

That sounds about right Mike. It is worth noting that in this case it took a much longer exposure because the earth is blocking the sun during a full lunar eclipse.

I think my exposures were in the range of f6.7 at 2 seconds. At more than 3 seconds blur, which looks like lack of focus, starts creeping in due to the movement of the moon.

With regular moon shots I've had good luck just pointing my K50 at the moon and using center spot metering. And I do come out with 1/100th f11 range.

Moon is kinda counter intuitive, unless you reason it out.

The subject is reflecting about 1/2 the light it is getting from direct sunlight.
If you follow sunny 16, then for ISO 100 film, in direct sun, correct exposure would be 1/100th at f;16
Now, we look at that and if 1/2 of the light is being reflected, then correct exposure would be 1/100th at f:11

If you look at the exif data on good moon shots most will be quite close to that exposure value.

Quarter moon, and half moon will use slightly more exposure, 1/2 to full stop more. Reason it out and it makes sense.

Good luck!! Keep trying!