Lunar Eclipse - Advice please

[Josh-H]

There is going to be a rare lunar eclipse tommorow night in Australian that I would like to photograph.

I have a location picked out - a look out tower with a clear view to distant mountains that the moon will rise over.

I will be shooting with a 5D and 400mm F2.8L with a 2 X Extender for 800mm.

I would love to advice, F Stop settings etc. on how to get the best images.

Ta.

[mahleu]

There is going to be a rare lunar eclipse tommorow night in Australian that I would like to photograph.

I have a location picked out - a look out tower with a clear view to distant mountains that the moon will rise over.

I will be shooting with a 5D and 400mm F2.8L with a 2 X Extender for 800mm.

I would love to advice, F Stop settings etc. on how to get the best images.

Ta.
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You have to be careful with the moon as it's deceptively bright, i'd take a spot meter reading off it before the eclipse begins and then use that exposure throughout.

[Heming]

-5 stops.  You have instant review on 5D.  Check it.  The histogram will be way on the left. Don't try to correct that.  Is a full eclips or partial?

[Rhossydd]

Lunar eclipses are interesting things to try and photograph. We had one here in the UK in March. As you’d expect the exposure needed changes dramatically between a normal moon and the eclipsed moon, something like 7 or 8 stops.
Looking back at the metadata my most successful shots at totality were taken at 3200 ISO, 0.4s @ f5.6, that’s shot on a 70-200 f2.8 with a x2 converter on an EOS1Ds mkII. That's with no major alterations in RAW post processing.
You can see the end result at:-
http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulholman/40...57594569831678/

Best of luck

[DiaAzul]

The only additional points I would add:

1...White Balance set to daylight.

2...The moon will move rapidly across your viewfinder. You may find it easier to track the moon if you have a mount that pivots along the moons plane of motion. At 800mm you will need to keep your shutter speed short to avoid motion blur. If you have a motorised mount then I would suggest using it to track the moon whilst keeping ISO speed down and extending the duration of the exposure.

If you want to have some foreground interest I would suggest a double exposure. The first for the landscape (either before or after the moon has come up) and the second (using the motorised mount) to get a good image of the moon. I would then composite the two in Photoshop. If you try and do a straight one capture shoot then you will have a lot of trouble trying to balance exposures, ISO and quality.

[Morgan_Moore]

There is going to be a rare lunar eclipse tommorow night in Australian that I would like to photograph.

I have a location picked out - a look out tower with a clear view to distant mountains that the moon will rise over.

I will be shooting with a 5D and 400mm F2.8L with a 2 X Extender for 800mm.

I would love to advice, F Stop settings etc. on how to get the best images.

Ta.
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I completely bodged shooting the UK eclips a while ago (D200 600F4 doubler)

It was well dark.

High ISO used = too much noise and (unless it was camera shake) the  MOON MOVES quite fast - fast enough to blur in say a 10s exposure wich ruled out low ISO

I think astro geeks use some sort of tracking thing that follows the movement therefore enabling long exposures

If it was camera shake - that is suprising - I used 2 tripods

The moon was high and small very arkward even to find with two tripods

Good luck - you will need it !

SMM

[mahleu]

I think astro geeks use some sort of tracking thing that follows the movement therefore enabling long exposures

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You can piggy back mount your camera to a tripod with a guidance device and an equatorial wedge which will allow you to get the right trajectory.

[Diane Miller]

There is going to be a rare lunar eclipse tommorow night in Australian that I would like to photograph.

I have a location picked out - a look out tower with a clear view to distant mountains that the moon will rise over.

I will be shooting with a 5D and 400mm F2.8L with a 2 X Extender for 800mm.

I would love to advice, F Stop settings etc. on how to get the best images.

Ta.
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Use a sturdy tripod and a remote shutter release.  Don't use the metered exposure off the full moon for the total phase -- it will be much darker then.  Bracket like hell and look at the histogram.  The motion of the moon will be  a factor.  I have done some testing with shutter speeds using the crescent moon.  With a 500mm lens on a 1.6 magnification factor sensor (= 800mm on the 5D) I got sharp edges at 5 seconds.  I'll be using the 500mm with a 1.4x tonight on my 5D, so I'll keep the shutter speed at or below 5 sec.

Focus while the moon is full, go to MF and tape the ring so you don't move it.  It may be too dark to get good focus during totality.

I've shot total lunar eclipses successfully with film, but can't find my notes for the best exposures.  The histogram is an exposure meter on steroids.

[Diane Miller]

Use a sturdy tripod and a remote shutter release.  Don't use the metered exposure off the full moon for the total phase -- it will be much darker then.  Bracket like hell and look at the histogram.  The motion of the moon will be  a factor.  I have done some testing with shutter speeds using the crescent moon.  With a 500mm lens on a 1.6 magnification factor sensor (= 800mm on the 5D) I got sharp edges at 5 seconds.  I'll be using the 500mm with a 1.4x tonight on my 5D, so I'll keep the shutter speed at or below 5 sec.

Focus while the moon is full, go to MF and tape the ring so you don't move it.  It may be too dark to get good focus during totality.

I've shot total lunar eclipses successfully with film, but can't find my notes for the best exposures.  The histogram is an exposure meter on steroids.
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Did you have success with the eclipse?  I hope I didn't mislead you on the shutter speeds.  I apparently mis-typed my notes -- it should have been 0.5 sec.  Fortunately I was able to check shots as I made them, as I was able to shoot from my house.  I used a 500mm with a 2x on a 5D, and got some movement blur above 0.5 sec.  I only had to resort to such a slow speed after it went into totality.

[Josh-H]

Did you have success with the eclipse?  I hope I didn't mislead you on the shutter speeds.  I apparently mis-typed my notes -- it should have been 0.5 sec.  Fortunately I was able to check shots as I made them, as I was able to shoot from my house.  I used a 500mm with a 2x on a 5D, and got some movement blur above 0.5 sec.  I only had to resort to such a slow speed after it went into totality.
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Yes - I did have great success. I got some images I am really really happy with.

I ended up shooting around 200 shots - bracketed like mad. And walked away with some wonderful images. I used the 400mm F2.8L with a 2 X extender. I found anything over around 1 second resulted in a little blur - which was really only a problem during Totality.

[Diane Miller]

Wonderful!  I got some decent ones, too.  Can we post images here?  (I'm new and still fumbling around.)  I'd love to see what anyone else got, although actually they would all look a lot alike, wouldn't they....

[marcmccalmont]

I tried here in Hawaii but the High ISO didn't come out too clean
Nextar 11, Canon 5D
Marc

[attachment=3109:attachment]

[DaveCurtis]

Great view from down in Dunedin, NZ.
I took this with a 1D mark II attached to a 30cm Meade LX200 telescope.


Dave

[Diane Miller]

I used a 500 with a 2x.  The moon filled 4/10 of the frame vertically -- could have used more magnification but it wasn't bad for the equipment I had.  They were very sharp until it went total and I had to go to ISO 1600, wide open aperture (some softening there) and 0.5 sec, where there was just the start of motion blur.  From your File Info it looks like both you guys had telescopes?  

Here are the last two:

[Rebecca]

I shot early tuesday morning in New York.
Canon 20d
ISO 100
70-300mm
f11
.5 seconds

This was one of my last shots. The sun started to come up just as the eclipse was full.

[Heming]

I don't understand why many used high ISO shooting moon like one of my friends used high ISO shooting fireworks.  The moon won't move that fast.  I used the lowest ISO on my camera, set on the tripot, 300mm lens coupled with 2X teleconverter.

[Josh-H]

I don't understand why many used high ISO shooting moon like one of my friends used high ISO shooting fireworks.  The moon won't move that fast.  I used the lowest ISO on my camera, set on the tripot, 300mm lens coupled with 2X teleconverter.
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Because when the moon is at totality [full eclipse] there is virtually no light at all and shutter speeds are slow enought to cause motion blur.

[marcmccalmont]

I don't understand why many used high ISO shooting moon like one of my friends used high ISO shooting fireworks.  The moon won't move that fast.  I used the lowest ISO on my camera, set on the tripot, 300mm lens coupled with 2X teleconverter.
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There was so much vibration with the telescope long exposures were blurred
Marc