[Leica] Blood Moon Eclipse practice photo

[Jayanand Govindaraj]

Howard R,
Thanks for the advice. No eclipse as seen from here, so it will have to
wait a couple of years
Cheers
Jayanand

On Sun, Jan 20, 2019 at 9:18 PM Howard Ritter <hlritter at bex.net> wrote:

> 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
>
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