[matthew]

This is my first effort at photographing the moon as a subject instead of a compositional element.

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These are heavily cropped from my 10MP E-510, taken with the 50-200 and 1.4TC for an effective 566mm-equivalent.
The final photo is a monochrome image that's been toned to match the original colour of the moon in full eclipse. (That's about as effective as my noise control gets when I've been awake since 3am.)

Did anyone else manage to get some photos?

[ABree]

Great images Matthew,

How cool is it that you see the moon upside down

This is the full moon from Monday night...taken with the Canon 350D attached to a telescope at f8 focal length 600mm



This is the lunar exclipse from Tuesday night, taken again with the telescope. Very hard to focus on, plus we had some cloud cover....


I've got a few more, haven't proccessed them yet.

Sharon

[shuttertalk]

Nice shots guys!! It was heavily overcast last night, so the view wasn't that great. But we caught a glimpse or two through the clouds...

[matthew]

Thanks, Sharon, your images are fantastic.

Jules, if it's any consolation, it looks better in photos.

[Toad]

Both sets of images great. I had a first class view of the eclipse last night from Maui!!

[Keith Alan]

It's been an education for new photographers that the moon moves fast and is very bright until it's heavily darkened during an eclipse.

I have spent all night typing explanations and critiques, but the main point is fast lenses and reasonable shutters are needed to capture the entire range of exposures during an eclipse.

Some awful examples have been seen...until now.

[Rabid Penguin]

I so wanted to take photos of this, but i got called into work!! :mad::mad::mad:

[smarti77]

I found it very difficult. I was not prepared for the speed of the movement of the moon moving across the sky!...
I wont post any closer crops because it will reveal how noisy and unsharp they are...



Abree - Your images taken through the telescope are very spectacular. The focus and sharpness is amazing!

[matthew]

Smarti, I like the composite images.

And the moon does move quickly - I read once that it can show motion blur at less than 1/4s, but I'm not sure if that's true. I do have some photos from 1/2s that came out alright, but most below that were bad.

I started my series at 1/80, f/8, and iso100. I ended it at 1/3, f/4.9 (wide open), and iso800. Unfortunately my E-510 shows banding in its noise at iso1600 under these conditions, and even iso800 is showing some signs of it in my final shots. That makes the setting somewhat useless...

And the moon in my photos is about 600 pixels wide.

And Toad, I'm jealous.

[ABree]

Shane I like your presentation, I have tried to get my two in the same frame, but my PS skills are letting me down.

The telescope is set at f8 & 600mm, both were ISO 100, the full moon was 1/320 sec's, the eclipse was 5 sec's.

This link may be helpful for night photography - their gallery is full of stunning images....
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutoria...graphy.htm

Sharon

[Wedding Shooter]

Great shots everyone - I love Smarti's composite.

[Keith Alan]

Matthew said "This is my first effort at photographing the moon as a subject instead of a compositional element".

Here is one of Matthew's moons as a compositional element, in a quick and dirty Photoshop composite that looks as fake as it is.



After browsing around Flickr and seeing hundreds of eclipse photos, only a small percentage of people used the moon that night as a compositional element, yet they were the photos that really caught my eye and had a lasting value, in my opinion.
I saw several other progressions like smarti77's and they were interesting scientifically but lacked the "Wow" factor that was possible.

I'm not being critical of everyone's fine efforts here, but now that the 'practice' shoots are out of the way and we have learned what it takes to capture the extreme range of exposure values necessary, I expect some true Art next time there's an eclipse visible to Shuttertalk members.

Consider this my challenge for the next eclipse, which is the only time the moon will be dim enough to cooperate with the usual multi-second nighttime long exposure by actually showing some detail instead of being tragically blown-out like all of my night photos.
When it's only a small part of the total composition like my crude example, sharpness doesn't much matter compared to color and texture, and this is what I think we should try for in the future.

Research where the moon will be and plan a composition that the eclipse will enhance?

[smarti77]

Well said Keith!

I really did approach it as a backyard practice experience. I learned a few things and even managed to stuff up my cheap tripod by overtightening the main handle....
I have seen a few brilliant red moon images set above amazing nightscapes but I always wonder if it is simply photoshopped in...

[matthew]

After browsing around Flickr and seeing hundreds of eclipse photos, only a small percentage of people used the moon that night as a compositional element, yet they were the photos that really caught my eye and had a lasting value, in my opinion.
I saw several other progressions like smarti77's and they were interesting scientifically but lacked the "Wow" factor that was possible.

It's one of those things that needs a certain "right place, right time" luck. I saw some photos from a woman in Japan, using the exact same equipment that I had, who was able to get some nice shots with the moon on the horizon. Where I was that simply wasn't possible, since the moon was washed out by the dawn before it got low enough. The idea of a collage is an interesting one, but it needs to be shot with flat front lighting for the full moon to be plausible.

As an aside, I saw some photos that were taken as a six-shot panorama through a telescope with a tracking mount. That's an impressive example as the moon as a subject. The moon in my photos is 600 pixels across, his is six thousand. Not too shabby.

Consider this my challenge for the next eclipse, which is the only time the moon will be dim enough to cooperate with the usual multi-second nighttime long exposure by actually showing some detail instead of being tragically blown-out like all of my night photos.

Careful what you wish for: here's the moon with a two-second exposure. You can see that it's badly affected by motion blur.



Incorporating the moon in a landscape without using compositing techniques (including HDR) is a real challenge, but I'm sure it's one that we can meet.

[Keith Alan]

I understand about the motion-blur, but when it's only 60 pixels wide as a background element in a scene it won't look so bad.

As for "right place, right time", that's the actual challenge.

[Rabid Penguin]

While we're all mooning each other (LOL) here's a pic that i took a while ago, when i first got my A100.