[Leica] Blood Moon Eclipse

[Howard Ritter]

Mark—

Yep, Nikon, D800 with the Zoom-Nikkor 80-400 at 400mm. I wanted all the FL I could get and my longest Leica is the 180 Elmarit-R.

Tripod of course, and only the best: the latest Ferrari-logoed, epoxy-infused carbon-fiber Giotto, internet-enabled, GPS-located, Wifi-connected, gyro stabilized with 17 sapphire bearings and magnetic articulations, and vibrationless hydraulic leg extension/retraction. Plus ultra-resolution optical position encoders on all three axes and electrorheomagnetic vibration damping. Or wait, maybe it was my faithful companion, my old aluminum Manfrotto. Yeah, that’s it.

Camera was set on 2 sec but I found that at this long FL, the long shutter was enough that the mechanical torsions of the mirror and shutter created image smear. So I exposed by selecting a 2-sec shutter, holding a black card in front of the lens when I triggered the shutter then moving it aside for half a second in mid-shutter to avoid the vibrations at opening and closing. Worked out well but not quite perfectly. Next time will use 3 or 4 sec to ensure full damping before moving the card aside.

ISO was 6400. A bit of tweaking in DxO and PS made it a little prettier.

—howard


On Oct 9, 2014, at 1:05 PM, Mark Rabiner <mark at rabinergroup.com> wrote:

> A perfect setup and technique! A nice 800 was it Nikon? Tripod?
> To me its like a magic show I always just want to know how they did it !
> Carbon fiber?!?!
> 
> 
> On 10/9/14 10:40 AM, "Howard Ritter" <hlritter at bex.net> wrote:
> 
>> Thanks, Mark! A lucky combination of time of day and geographical location
>> didn’t hoit!
>> 
>> —howard
>> 
>> 
>> On Oct 9, 2014, at 4:09 AM, Mark Rabiner <mark at rabinergroup.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> Real nice ones! Super sharp! Perfectly exposed! Never seen  it this good! I
>>> think better than my blood moon from last time.!
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 10/8/14 7:21 PM, "Howard Ritter" <hlritter at bex.net> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> I¹ve just posted a couple of more images from this morning¹s eclipse. These
>>>> were made with a D800 and 400mm zoom. They show a much larger image of the
>>>> Moon, and one with a splash of stars in the background.
>>>> 
>>>> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/Blood+Moon/
>>>> 
>>>> Thanks for looking. C&C welcome.
>>>> 
>>>> ‹howard