[Leica] Blood Moon Eclipse practice photo

[hlritter at bex.net (Howard Ritter)]

Jayanand, Howard, and Douglas,

That is correct for a Moon illuminated by the full Sun, as it was when 
Howard shot it. At ISO 400 and f/8, the (1/ISO @ f/16) rule of thumb would 
call for an exposure of 1/800 or so, just as Howard shot it. Things change 
radically as the eclipse progresses.

Before the Moon enters totality, while it?s moving through the penumbra, 
illuminated by the partially eclipsed Sun, the correct exposure will 
decrease fairly rapidly, as any given point on the Moon will go from 
illuminated by the full Sun to entering the umbra in the space of just an 
hour. In fact, since the Moon?s diameter is almost exactly the same as the 
width of the penumbra, there wil be a moment, as the eastern limb of the 
Moon enters the umbra, when the illumination level varies across the Moon 
from full shadow to full sunlight.

At the middle of full eclipse, the level of illumination is quite low, 
coming from ?all the sunsets in the world? as someone noted ? the sunlight 
from the hidden Sun scattered by the Earth?s atmosphere. This is a tiny 
fraction of direct sunlight, so a reasonable starting point for f/8 would be 
1 sec at ISO 6400. The position of the Moon within the umbra at mid-eclipse, 
as well as the degree to which the Earth?s atmosphere scatters sunlight can 
cause the brightness of the Moon at mid-eclipse to vary from eclipse to 
eclipse, from nearly invisible to rather prominent. So the above settings 
are just a starting point. The deep shadow is why you can?t hand-hold at 
mid-eclipse. It?s also why it?s difficult to capture both the sunlight and 
the shadow portions of the partially eclipsed Moon. Aggressive HDR or 
Photoshopping is necessary. The best results come from stacking a number of 
images spanning the full exposure range.

Nathan?s point about foreground elements adding interest is well taken. Here 
are several images I made of the ?Blood Moon? eclipse four years ago. 
Mid-eclipse occurred when the Moon was quite low in the sky as seen from the 
eastern U.S., so these images capture foreground trees. In fact, they depict 
the whole range of distances from trees just tens of meters away, to the 
blue sky at tens of km, to the Moon at hundreds of thousands of km, to the 
planet Uranus (the blue-green dot to the left of the Moon) at hundreds of 
millions of km, to the stars at trillions of km.

Please view large!

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/Blood+Moon/Mideclipse+in+Pisces+small.jpg.html
 
<http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/Blood+Moon/Mideclipse+in+Pisces+small.jpg.html>

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/Blood+Moon/Blood+Moon+Eclipse.jpg.html
 
<http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/Blood+Moon/Blood+Moon+Eclipse.jpg.html>

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/Blood+Moon/Mideclipse+1.jpg.html 
<http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/Blood+Moon/Mideclipse+1.jpg.html>

Unfortunately, mid-eclipse will happen with the Moon nearly overhead as seen 
from here, so no foreground this time unless I tromp through the snow to get 
under a tree in the back yard.


Have to go to Home Depot now. We just moved back to Ohio, and when we last 
departed we left our snow shovel behind. Eight inches fell yesterday, and I 
need to clear a space for my tripod?


?howard


> On 20Jan, 2019, at 0820, Jayanand Govindaraj via LUG <lug at 
> leica-users.org> wrote:
> 
> Douglas,
> Whatever light you see will be reflected sunlight, only the area will vary,
> but the exposure should stay the same. The theoretical settings will be
> your sunny daylight rule, because you are photographing sunlight, at the
> end of the day, - you can tweak it a bit if you want! :-)
> 
> Cheers
> Jayanand
> 
> On Sun, Jan 20, 2019 at 6:42 PM Douglas Barry <imra at iol.ie> wrote:
> 
>> Nathan and Howard, it's not going to happen until 2029 again, so I think
>> I might make the effort as they think it's going to be clear here
>> between 5:15am and 5:45am - the period of maximum eclipse for us. The
>> position of it means all I have to do is throw open the glass doors, and
>> I can take a shot of it from inside the house with a pre-set up camera
>> and tripod before staggering back to bed. I presume Howard's settings
>> are no good for the actual shot as the light levels from the moon will
>> be lower.  Has anybody got an idea of settings at f8?
>> 
>> Douglas