by Jim Hansen
Got this at about 7:25pm last night, just as it had cleared the trees here in the Northern Sierra. It has been nice to look at some previous posts of this event. There was still a bit of brightness at this location when it came up. Unfortunately, there was a thin cirrus layer on the horizon, so it didn't become really dramatic until it got higher and above the clouds. I chose this one because of the scale provided by the partially lit trees. Had lots of trouble getting the moon sharp at this stage, I think because of the clouds. tried manual, auto, and live view getting some sharp but many not. Later on the autofocus worked just fine. Also struggled with ISO and shutter speed, particularly when the eclipse began to wane and the bottom became incredibly bright. D800e, 300f4, 1.4tc, 3 seconds, f11, ISO 200. Please see the repost below and click on it to see the larger version.
Comments
8 commentsI like this one, Jim. The faint moon plays off of the color in the trees nicely. Everything looks really sharp for a 3sec exposure. Well done.
This is nice. You got a little more color in the trees than I did but this was 30 plus minutes earlier than my image. And I am sure you are quite a bit farther south. The trees really help with perspective. Like you and others, I had all kinds of problems with auto focus and eventually used manual. It wasn't easy.
Jim, you're right, the trees add both interest and scale very well here. In the larger version, it looks like there's good detail in the trees. I'd try bringing that out just a bit more, especially away from the one trunk that already shows well. Depending on how the brightening goes, cropping from the top and right might let you eliminate some of the sky.
Based on Mark's take on this, here is a cropped and lightened version of the first image in this series, which was a minute or two prior to the one posted above.
Man, those trees do make a great addition to this moon shot. More than an addition, they are a very important part of the scene.
I had the same problems as you with focus and dim light, but chose to push the ISO to keep the exposure short. That was important to me because the moon was high when if fully eclipsed (around midnight in the east), so the deep darkness and lack of atmosphere made the moon very clear and detailed.
I think both shots are beautiful. I think the comp on the second shot is better, but the sky looks very bright to me. That's probably because I was viewing this at midnight, however, so you need to decide which exposure looks more real to you. I see lots of nice tree details in both versions. The original post might look better with some sky removed - maybe a 16x9 crop. (Seems like I am liking that "movie" aspect ratio a lot these days.)
This has a mystical quality that really like. The moon looks ephemeral, and the subtle detail in the trees adds depth. Nicely done!
The repost is lovely, but I prefer the orginal, primarily because of the position of the moon.
--P
The repost looks very good to me, Jim. Has me channeling John Fogerty and humming "There's a blood moon on the rise....." oh right, that was "There's a bad moon on the rise..."
Thanks everyone for your thoughtful and very helpful comments. Mark, I was wondering if anyone might pick up the connection to the old Creedence song. Had that song going in my head when I titled this!