Eclipse at ISO 1600

[Dans_D60]

Tonight was the full moon eclipse. A little hazy but even at ISO 1600 images are “OK”. I love my 10D!
Dan
http://www.pettusphoto.com

Full Moon Eclipse 15 May 2003 – ISO 1600 -
http://www.pettusphoto.com/eclipse.jpg

[robertwgross]

I hope that speck on the right side is a star and not a dead pixel on the sensor.

---Bob Gross---

[perfectpixel]

nice shot. Did this get any PS treatment?
I tried a few shots with my 3MP kodak point'n'pray, nothing nearly as nice. Full eclipse shots are too dark, ones with even a slight wedge of light after the eclipse are blown out.
Wish I had a real camera :(

[Dans_D60]

robertwgross wrote:
I hope that speck on the right side is a star and not a dead pixel on the sensor.

---Bob Gross---

Hi Bob:

Not a dead pixel. A star (or planet?). Shot on the west coast right after sunset. Only a few very bright stars were present. Here is another image where I was able to pick up a few stars. For sure, I’m not into astronomy and stargazing. A “proper” shot would be taken out in the desert on a telescope with a motor-drive to follow the movement. This was a VERY DIM subject and even at ISO 800-1600 at f11-8 it required exposure times of 3+ seconds that produced some blur due to the moon’s rising movement. I attempted to sharpen by reducing the f-stop to f22 but at 1600 it needed 20 seconds and the moon’s movement caused the images to become unusable. Anyway, this was just a backyard experiment and for fun only!
Dan
http://www.pettusphoto.com

STARS at SUNSET
http://www.pettusphoto.com/eclipse1.jpg

[lluscombe]

What lens did you use? Thanks for the picture, overcast here, so I missed the show :(

[Dans_D60]

lluscombe wrote:
What lens did you use? Thanks for the picture, overcast here, so I missed the show :(

100-400 4.5 L. No cloud cover but pretty hazy here. I live about a mile from the beach in Southern California so we get a fair share of costal clouds and fog notably in the Spring time of year. Would have been nice to have a little more light [2.8], but again, astronomy is not a hobby for me so no telescopes or super telephoto lenses.
Dan
http://www.pettusphoto.com

[justme_dc]

I'm glad you got some shots! I worked on getting shots of the eclipse for a couple of hours here in Los Angeles but light pollution was my enemy. Even when I drove into the hills the spill from all the city lights was bad. I couldn't get anything I felt was a "keeper". It was a great show none the less I watched it most of the night.

[Ken Fong]

Dan,
That is a great shot. I always have problems in capturing the moon (eclipse or not), and this is probably my first serious lesson in metering. The histogram is always extremely thin and on the far left (for the crescent phase, I was using 200mm with 2x converter, f2.8...about 1/750 second, ISO 100.) I assume the histogram is thin because the moon is a relatively small portion of the entire shot. What are some methods to improve the distribution? Is there a way to limit the endpoints of the histogram before capturing? Will I need to zoom even more and track the subject's movement?

thanks
-Ken

[perfectpixel]

Ken,
I'll let the experts here give a more intelligent response. But I have the same problem. I am sure the answer is in post processing in PS using the levels function. On my shots from last night I noticed that some of the color channels had two humps far to the left and a little more spread (blue I think). So adjusting per color and not in RGB is probably the way to go. Certainly "auto levels" is not the right thing to do.
I fooled around with it for a long time, sometimes I made it look better, sometimes worse. But I really need an education in this, I was just fumbling around in the dark (bad pun :D).
Hope we get some answers here.

[CyberDyneSystems]

http://cyberdynesytemsimaging.fotopic.net/photo.php?id=510252

Just made it in time to catch this. ISO 1600 on a 10D with my Sigma 50-500mm (@500mm = 800mm crop factor)

I have a peice of junk tripod at the moment,. so most were to blurry. Also,. lots of clouds were passing,. that is the orange glow upper right corner. In most pics this was far more proniunced,. but it meant a loss of detail as well.

[Ken Fong]

Yeah, I was fumbling around too...the LCD backlit feature was very handy.
Post-capture level adjustment is all I can do for this round, but I'm hoping that I can capture more data during the capture in the future. I guess a true spot meter would be helpful.

What I learned from last night:
- get a steady tripod; if you happen to have a cheap tripod, keep it low to the ground and squat
- get a remote trigger; if you can't use a remote trigger, use the timer
- be familiar with the moon's path before setting up

This was good practice...we should all try it again in November. Anyone thinking about getting one of those Meade telescopes? I think these things can track, and you can buy a set of adapters at B&H to attach your camera. Currently, Meade has an offer of a free tripod and computerized controller, which might be good for us non-astronomer types.

-Ken

[cowman345]

I missed it too due to overcast skies, but check out this moon shot I took the other week: any feedback is greatly appreciated.

http://www.photoblink.com/imageview.asp?imageid=68664&cid=0&groupby=authorid&value=2753&page=1

BTW, both moon shots here are fantastic! I'm so sad I missed it!

-dave-

[tzrider]

img]http://www.planet.nl/~baack000/D60/moon.jpg[img

I did this one with a 100-400 and 2.0 converter.
It's a crop. I think I used 100 ISO and a
longer exposure time ....

Jeroen

[tzrider]

[img]http://www.planet.nl/~baack000/D60/moon.jpg[img]

I did this one with a 100-400 and 2.0 converter.
It's a crop. I think I used 100 ISO and a
longer exposure time ....

Jeroen