Total Lunar Eclipse
Haven written much of anything to this Journal in quite some time. I have been posting to the Vero social network, which is awesome, but difficult to get folks to join as they’re entrenched in the big name brands. But I wander…
Last night we had a total lunar eclipse and wonder of wonders it was actually perfect conditions for viewing in the mid-atlantic region. So I hucked out the camera and tripod at 4:30AM to setup and snap some shots as well as just absorb the really cool event!
The equipment used to shoot the eclipse was my Sony A7R3 with a Sony 100-400mm lens. I don’t have a ton of experience shooting the moon or lunar eclipses, so I got out there and experimented. I landed on 2-3 second exposures at ISO 400 and f5.6, which was wide open for the lens at 400mm. I would have liked to shoot longer exposures to pick up more surrounding stars, but the moon fairly zips across the sky and even 3s was a bit on the edge to avoid motion blur. What is really needed is either a motion tracker or something with a very big aperture like f1.4. Ah well, one shoots what one has. I learned and did get some satisfying shots that certainly wouldn’t be possible with a cell phone.