The right way to {Photograph} a Lunar Eclipse and Get Superb Outcomes

Once in a while the Moon falls into the shadows of the Earth, leading to a lunar eclipse. Though lunar eclipses happen extra typically than photo voltaic eclipses, you’ll nonetheless wish to expertise watching and probably photographing this considerably uncommon and stunningly lovely phenomenon. I’ve been taking footage of each partial and whole lunar eclipses for a variety of years now, and I made a decision to doc my experiences and the challenges I encountered for the advantage of our readers. On this article, I’ll do my finest to clarify how one can {photograph} a lunar eclipse intimately.

What Time And Place Is the Lunar Eclipse?

Lunar eclipses are by no means seen throughout your complete world, solely a part of it. However they occur typically sufficient that you just’ll undoubtedly have the ability to see a lunar eclipse from the place you reside if you happen to’re affected person! I like to recommend visiting this web site and typing in your metropolis title to see if the upcoming eclipse is seen the place you reside, in addition to the time and length of the eclipse.

The Fundamentals of Moon Images

Earlier than studying the data under, I like to recommend studying my “The right way to {Photograph} the Moon” article, the place yow will discover loads of data (together with digicam settings) on the topic. You’ll need that whereas capturing the start and the tip of a lunar eclipse, when the Moon is partially lit by the Solar.

Photographing the Sequence

One factor you want to determine on, is whether or not you wish to shoot your complete sequence of the lunar eclipse, or simply the interval of totality when the Moon is orange / pink in colour. I might personally suggest to doc the entire course of from the start to the tip, so that you’ve got footage of the complete Moon, then a partial eclipse, then a complete eclipse, then a partial eclipse once more, returning again to full Moon when the eclipse ends. The good factor about having your complete sequence in footage, is that you may later mix photographs collectively like this:

You’ll have to be very affected person although – it took me about 4 hours in whole to seize the Moon from the start to the tip of the eclipse. The evening was fairly chilly, however I used to be out with a gaggle of photographers and we determined to doc all phases of the eclipse with our cameras. After we have been executed, we determined to drive to an overlook the place we photographed the above scene individually as a panorama, with the intention to create a single composite you see above. You will need to observe that the picture has a a lot bigger Moon in comparison with the fact. If I saved the Moon at its actual measurement relative to the panorama, it might have seemed minuscule. Some photographers select to {photograph} actual scenes with tremendous telephoto lenses, with out resizing the panorama or the Moon. Such pictures require quite a lot of planning and energy (typically requiring a lunar eclipse to happen close to the horizon for matching a panorama), however supply a way more rewarding expertise. Correct planning is extraordinarily vital in such instances. Dependable instruments and apps that permit one to preview the placement of the lunar eclipse ought to be used for finest outcomes, as defined under.

Planning

Whether or not your purpose is to easily {photograph} the Moon throughout an eclipse, or to {photograph} a scene with the Moon on the time of the eclipse, correct planning is vital and shouldn’t be neglected. There are many nice software program and smartphone apps on the market that you should utilize for planning functions, however the two apps I exploit probably the most are PhotoPills and The Photographer’s Ephemeris. When doing evening pictures, I typically fireplace up Star Stroll as nicely, however that’s provided that I must discover a explicit object within the sky. Having the ability to see precisely the place the Moon goes to rise is essential – it would make the job of scouting for a location a lot simpler.

Whereas main a gaggle of photographers in Dying Valley Nationwide Park, I actually hoped that the sky would clear up in the course of the whole lunar eclipse on January 20, 2019. The climate was fairly stormy for a number of days in the beginning of my workshop, however the day of the eclipse seemed promising, with the sky opening up within the night. Whereas checking for climate experiences each few hours, I additionally used the PhotoPills app on my smartphone to search out out precisely the place the Moon could be positioned within the sky in the course of the lunar eclipse. Utilizing the Night time Augmented Actuality (Night time AR) function of the app allowed me to pinpoint the precise location of the Moon.

After realizing that I might not have the ability to discover a topic tall sufficient within the neighborhood to have the ability to use it as my foreground, I made the choice to skip the scouting course of and solely concentrate on photographing the lunar eclipse with my super-telephoto lens. Nevertheless, if I discovered a really tall foreground topic, it might have labored to {photograph} the eclipse over it. As a substitute, I seemed up the place the Moon was going to rise from and determined to {photograph} a panorama scene dealing with the Moon because it rose up:

As you may see, it was a reasonably foggy night – not significantly nice for photographing a lunar eclipse! Because the Moon rose over the distant mountains, the clouds within the sky have been too thick, making it an issue to get a transparent shot of the Moon. The climate forecast nonetheless insisted on a transparent evening although. I seemed on the horizon and the sky certainly seemed fairly clear there. After about an hour the sky certainly cleared up for probably the most half – simply in time for the start of the lunar eclipse!

So hold all this in thoughts. When planning for a lunar eclipse, all the time pay shut consideration to climate forecast – you would possibly want to maneuver to a special location with much less cloud protection.

Digicam Tools and Lenses

On the subject of photographing a lunar eclipse, the kind of gear you might be utilizing performs an enormous position. Photographing a lunar eclipse is not the identical as photographing the Moon for one main cause – lack of sunshine. Once you {photograph} the Moon lit by the Solar, it’s sometimes so shiny, that you may simply use quick shutter speeds and low ISO, with out having to fret about noise and movement blur. Photographing a lunar eclipse is far more difficult, as a result of the Moon will get very dim when it’s within the Earth’s shadow. Not solely will you need to drastically lower your shutter velocity, however additionally, you will have to extend digicam ISO to a a lot greater worth, particularly if you’re capturing with lengthy lenses above 300mm. Having a superb DSLR or a mirrorless digicam that may deal with noise at excessive ISO ranges will definitely assist.

On the subject of lenses, longer lenses will amplify the Moon extra and supply some good particulars in your photographs. So, until you might be planning to seize the Moon with a foreground factor, I might suggest to make use of the longest lens in your arsenal. However an extended lens presents one other drawback for Moon pictures – you’ll have to use a quick shutter velocity to get blur-free photographs of the Moon, because it strikes so quick.

Certainly, one of the best factor you are able to do for lunar eclipse pictures is get an equatorial tracker, such because the iOptron SkyGuider Professional:

I’ve beforehand tried to {photograph} the Moon and not using a tracker and I all the time discovered myself scuffling with digicam settings on the time of the entire lunar eclipse. Even with a really gradual shutter velocity of 1 second (which was barely sufficient to maintain movement blur below management), I needed to improve my digicam ISO to 3200, at which level the quantity of noise within the photographs was an excessive amount of to cope with. With an equatorial tracker, when you set it as much as monitor the Moon, you may take very lengthy exposures with out having to fret about shutter velocity, for the reason that setup mechanically adjusts for the Moon actions. As well as, you do not need to continually cope with readjusting your composition each couple of minutes. The largest process goes to be correct and correct alignment with the North Star – when you try this, the remainder of it’ll be a breeze. With the tracker, I used to be simply capable of take 10-20 second exposures at ISO 64 – ISO 200, which allowed me to take photographs with no noise points to cope with in post-processing.

equatorial tracker is not only helpful for photographing lunar eclipses. I used the identical setup earlier than for photographing a photo voltaic eclipse, in addition to photographing the Milky Manner and it labored amazingly nicely. In case you are into photographing the evening sky, you must critically take into account investing in such a tool. In truth, as an alternative of spending some huge cash shopping for costly lenses designed for astrophotography, I might suggest to start out out with a tracker!

In case you have no plans for getting an equatorial tracker, you may nonetheless efficiently {photograph} the lunar eclipse. See the directions under for extra particulars.

Digicam Settings

Once you shoot a shiny Moon, a superb beginning publicity is often round 1/125-1/250th of a second @ f/8, ISO 100. When an eclipse begins, this publicity ought to work nice to reveal the intense a part of the Moon, whereas the darkish aspect of the Moon shouldn’t be going to be seen in any respect. Sooner or later, you’ll have to change your shutter velocity to reveal for the darkish aspect, whereas overexposing the intense aspect of the Moon, much like this picture:

I discovered that the publicity distinction between the intense and the darkish sides of the Moon was a whopping 8 full stops! What does this imply? It signifies that if you happen to have been getting a fantastic publicity of the Solar-lit Moon at 1/250th of a second at ISO 200, with the intention to seize the a part of the Moon that’s within the Earth’s shadow, you’ll have to shoot at 1 second @ ISO 200 (1/125 -> 1/60 -> 1/30 -> 1/15 -> 1/8 -> 1/4 -> 1/2 -> 1)!

That is the half the place the focal size of your lens turns into your enemy. The longer the lens, the extra you want to fear about two main issues – shutter velocity and digicam shake. A protracted lens (above 300mm) will make the Moon bigger in your image, which on the similar time signifies that the Moon will transfer in a short time by means of your body. Utilizing a gradual shutter velocity is clearly unacceptable, as a result of the Moon options will seem blurry resulting from movement blur. Due to this fact, your solely alternative (other than getting a motorized equatorial tracker) is to shoot at most aperture and improve digicam ISO to a big quantity. Within the above instance, to extend my shutter velocity to only 1/fifteenth of a second, I must shoot at ISO 3200, which might end in quite a lot of noise, particularly if I have been capturing on a small sensor digicam.

So, what ought to your shutter velocity be? It is determined by the focal size of your lens. In case you are capturing at 300mm on a 1.5x crop-factor digicam physique utilizing a 70-300mm lens, shoot at shutter speeds quicker than 2 seconds. In case you are utilizing an extended lens, you’ll have to use even quicker shutter speeds to get a blur-free picture of the Moon. I used to be capturing at 560mm (a 400mm lens with a 1.4x teleconverter) on a 12 MP full-frame digicam and I discovered that my restrict was a few half a second (1/2) earlier than the Moon began to get blurry. In case you have a excessive decision digicam with a 30+ MP sensor, you would possibly want to make use of even longer shutter speeds to keep away from blurring the Moon.

Check out the under crop shot at 2 seconds to see how blurry the Moon bought:

And that’s with me capturing on a tripod utilizing a distant shutter launch, plus Mirror Up with about 1-second interval after elevating the mirror! So it’s undoubtedly not digicam shake you’re looking at within the above picture – that’s movement blur. Talking of digicam shake, you want to completely just remember to are profiting from all of the capabilities of your digicam to attenuate digicam shake, particularly when capturing with lengthy super-telephoto lenses.

It goes with out saying that your digicam must be mounted securely in your tripod and also you shouldn’t be releasing the shutter together with your hand. Both use a distant shutter launch together with “Mirror Up” mode to scale back digicam shake, or you probably have a extra superior digicam that helps options comparable to Publicity Delay Mode and Digital Entrance-Curtain Shutter, you should utilize these options to scale back, or probably even eradicate digicam shake. Lastly, don’t overlook to show off Picture Stabilization / Vibration Discount when your lens is mounted on a tripod.

Take into account that taking footage of half-lit or quarter-lit Moon is comparatively simple, since you continue to have fairly a bit of sunshine to work with. As soon as the Moon goes into Earth’s umbral shadow and totality begins, that’s when you’ll encounter probably the most points. Relying on how shiny the Moon seems throughout this section, you’ll have to modify your publicity accordingly. Over the last whole lunar eclipse occasion, these round me that didn’t have equatorial trackers needed to open up their aperture absolutely and shoot between ISO 1600 and 3200, which added fairly a little bit of noise to their photographs. At all times needless to say it’s higher to have noise than movement blur in photographs. Whereas noise will be handled in post-processing, a blurry {photograph} can’t be saved.

Under are my suggestions for a correct setup and digicam settings:

1. Use the longest lens you will get your arms on. Whether it is suitable with a teleconverter, you would possibly wish to use it.
2. When utilizing a heavy lens, all the time mount the lens on a tripod as an alternative of the digicam.
3. Use a steady tripod and a stable tripod head that may simply deal with the load of your digicam + lens.
4. In case your digicam has the EFCS function, be sure to show it on and use the actual digicam mode that takes benefit of it with the intention to eradicate shutter shock.
5. In case your digicam doesn’t have the EFCS function, use Mirror Up together with a distant shutter launch or Publicity Delay Mode (if obtainable).
6. Make sure that to correctly focus your lens. Do it earlier than the eclipse begins. As soon as focus is acquired, flip off autofocus (see #6 under for extra particulars on focusing).
7. Begin at ISO 100 in the course of the partial eclipse and improve ISO as wanted throughout totality.
8. Select the sharpest aperture of the lens for partial lunar eclipse photographs (sometimes between f/4-f/8). Open up the lens to the utmost aperture throughout totality.
9. On the subject of shutter velocity, begin with the five hundred rule (divide 500 by the full-frame equal focal size of the lens), evaluation photographs at 100% zoom and modify as wanted.

Focus Accuracy and Sharpness

It doesn’t matter what lens you might be utilizing, getting a really correct concentrate on the Moon is extraordinarily vital. I do know that a few of you would possibly counsel to shoot at infinity, however since many lenses now permit focusing past infinity, getting a real infinity focus shouldn’t be that simple – a slight inaccuracy will make the Moon seem blurry. Whereas utilizing your middle focus level to accumulate focus would possibly work advantageous when the Moon is lit by the Solar, your autofocus will probably stop to perform or is likely to be grossly inaccurate when the Moon is in totality. Use your digicam LCD display screen to zoom into the Moon and purchase exact focus. In case your LCD display screen overexposes the Moon, making it unattainable to see the small print for focusing, see if you happen to can flip off publicity simulation in your digicam menu system. On some Nikon DSLRs, the answer is to press the “OK” button in Dwell View, which takes care of the issue.

As a substitute of coping with refocusing each time you are taking an image, I extremely suggest to modify off autofocus when you get correct concentrate on the Moon (ideally earlier than the lunar eclipse begins). Take an image and use the LCD display screen of the digicam to see how sharp the Moon is. Zoom in all the way in which and ensure that all of the options of the Moon are seen. If the Moon seems blurry, return and retry. If you happen to can not handle to get your digicam to autofocus in Dwell View mode, attempt manually focusing together with your hand whereas zoomed in all the way in which within the LCD. If you happen to get exact focus earlier than the Moon goes into the Earth’s shadow, you gained’t have to the touch your focus till the tip of the eclipse.

Yet another factor I want to level out: if you’re utilizing a lens with a teleconverter, or if you’re utilizing a client zoom lens, the optics are in all probability not very sharp when capturing at massive apertures. Stopping down the lens aperture to f/8-f/11 ought to provide the sharpest outcomes. Don’t use apertures smaller than f/11 (comparable to f/16 or f/22) – diffraction will kick in and make the Moon seem even softer.

Moon Motion Pace

To this point I discussed a number of occasions how briskly the Moon strikes when utilizing lengthy lenses. Check out this video and see for your self the place the Moon begins within the body, after which finally ends up on the finish of the two minute video. In case you are impatient, merely look in the beginning of the video, then the tip and examine the placement of the Moon within the body:

Now simply assume what number of occasions I needed to transfer my digicam to {photograph} a 4 hour lengthy eclipse!

Bracketing Partial Lunar Eclipse

Contemplating that the shadow and the intense aspect of the Moon are 8 stops aside, you is likely to be questioning if there may be worth in bracketing the photographs to seize element in each. To be trustworthy, after going by means of the method of bracketing over the last whole lunar eclipse, I actually battle to see the advantages of doing it. To start with, you find yourself taking means too many photographs within the course of and second, I don’t see how one can mix exposures 8 stops aside with out making the ensuing picture look synthetic. Check out the under {photograph}:

Personally, I discover the picture fairly unnatural. Through the partial lunar eclipse, our eyes can not actually see the shadow a part of the Moon – we are able to solely begin seeing the small print as soon as the Moon nears totality. Whereas it’s cool to have the ability to see each with our digital cameras, I battle to see the worth of capturing all of the shadow and spotlight element in the course of the partial lunar eclipse. Plus, mixing these photographs in post-processing software program was reasonably painful. Lightroom was not capable of do a superb job, so I needed to export a number of photographs into Photoshop and mix them manually, which took fairly a little bit of effort and time.

My suggestion could be to reveal for the highlights in the course of the partial eclipse. As soon as the Moon nears totality, you may change your metering to the shadows.

Composition

Until you might be capturing at quick focal lengths with a foreground object or some type of a scene, don’t fear about composition – place the moon anyplace in your body. The situation doesn’t matter, since you may simply crop the Moon out in post-processing, so long as it’s uncovered correctly. When capturing and not using a motorized equatorial tracker, I typically discovered myself re-centering the Moon in my body, however as you noticed from the above video, it was not a simple process. After I whereas, I began inserting the Moon on my high left nook body and let it transfer in the direction of the fitting backside nook. When it approached the underside, I might transfer it again to the highest left once more.

If you wish to have stars with the Moon within the ultimate image, the easiest way is to shoot stars individually, then mix each photographs collectively. If you wish to have a composite picture just like the one I posted on this article, then your finest wager is to {photograph} an evening scene individually with a wide-angle lens, then use Photoshop to copy-paste the Moon into the picture.

Publish-Processing

The post-processing methodology I exploit for the Moon is described intimately in my “The right way to {Photograph} the Moon” article. If you happen to didn’t use a tracker, the most important drawback goes to be coping with all of the noise in photographs resulting from excessive ISO ranges. If noise bothers you, see my “Noise Discount Tutorial” – there are many ideas in that article on how one can clear up noise in Photoshop and Lightroom.

As for doing composite photographs (combining the varied phases of the Moon with different photographs), the method shouldn’t be that troublesome:

1. Choose a few pictures with a darkish sky, clearly shot at evening.
2. Open your Moon pictures and utilizing the “Fast Choice” software, choose simply the Moon by itself. Just be sure you are grabbing the entire Moon, not simply components of it.
3. Copy the Moon by urgent CTRL+C / Command+C
4. Paste it right into a corresponding picture with a darkish sky.
5. If the Moon you copied has some black edges to it and your sky shouldn’t be completely black, then do this trick: choose the Moon as soon as once more with the Fast Choice software, then proper click on the Moon, select “Choose Inverse”, then proper click on once more, select “Feather” and provides it 2-3 pixels. Subsequent, click on on the “Add a Masks” button on the layers palette. As soon as that is executed, click on on the Masks itself within the layers window, then click on “Apply Masks”. Repeat this course of a number of occasions, if crucial, to make the sides of the Moon easy.
6. Experiment with copy-pasting a number of phases of the Moon and see how you want the ultimate picture.
7. Don’t overlook about sharpening the Moon. Do it earlier than deciding on the Moon with the Fast Choice software, in any other case the sharpening software can even sharpen the sides of the Moon.

Personally, I actually like combining a number of phases of the lunar eclipse in a single composite. Check out the under picture, which exhibits three whole lunar eclipse phases:

Right here is one other composite that exhibits two partial eclipse pictures and a complete eclipse picture within the center:

I personally like the primary model, however others like the second higher. Doing this took a while in Photoshop to chop the Moon and place it like this, however I like the tip consequence and that’s what actually issues.

I hope you discovered this text helpful. In case you have any questions, please let me know within the feedback part under!