Blood Moon

GMan_nz

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Hi folks,

Blood moon tonight, kinda cool. I got a few shots and I'm kinda pleased with the result given the lens I was using, but any advice (for myself or others planning to shoot the moon) on how to improve would be useful.

I was operating on manual, and tried various settings - including up to 10 second exposures on ISO 200, but I realise now that was a waste of time as the subject moves through the sky and the results are fuzzy. There's a lot of noise in the ISO 1600 shots and I'm yet to try Ninja-ing that out.

Unfortunately the night wasn't very still and my tripod is a bit flimsy, so a few gusts of wind upset a number of my attempts.

Should I have twiddled with exposure settings as well? Anything else that might have helped ? . . .probably some expensive glass @ F2.8 but that's out of the question at the moment...

Shooting with a D50 and the 70-300 lens at 300mm & F5.6
Flickr page http://www.flickr.com/photos/gman_nz/

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I think your shot is fabulous! There's no way I was getting up before dawn, LOL. I especially like the little star above and to the right of the moon.
 
Oh yeah, this is great. Too bad there weren't any clouds surrounding it to give a really spooky look.
 
hey gman, i was planning on shooting this too but stupid auckland weather stopped that, nice shot!!
 
Pretty great shot!
 
Here's my attempt. I had the same problems. Messed around with settings but couldn't seem to get it fast enough to keep the moon from moving.

I like yours more

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Thanks DS. Yeah I took about 10 shots before I started getting usable results. I was amazed at how different the settings needed to be for the partial eclipse (white moonlight - about ISO 400 & 1/250 exp) vs the lunar rossa (red/orange - ISO 1600 & 1/1.6 - 1 sec exp).

I guess that was one of the reasons I wanted to get before, during and after shots - I don't usually use fully manual. This was a good opportunity to get an understanding of how different ISO, & s/s can work together, and what the compromises are. I didn't expect as much blurring as I got @ 10seconds, but the movement of the moon is more than enough to upset the shot - stars had a clear track like yours.

Oh for a fixed F2.8. F5.6 doesn't really cut it for this kind of thing.

Now for the clean up. I plan to run the images thru Noise Ninja (auto profile since I don't really understand how it works) and then I guess some sharpening (which I really have no clue about)

Is USM (CS2) the best to use - and if so, why? I can't fathom the settings that should be used. It's obviously kind of specific to each image, but I'd really like to understand what the USM options do. I can always just 'play with it' but can someone explian what impact the various sliders will have?

Why use USM instead of 'Smart Sharpen' or one of the other sharpening options?

Also - is it best to filter for noise first, then sharpen - or vice versa?

Cheers.
 
You poor Americans our eclipse was from 8pm to about 10pm. Still feel wreaked though because I had to do an assignment after I got home.

I had equipment problems, mainly the lack of a decent telephoto lens. Shot my pictures through a 105mm and with the hope of making a beautiful multiexposure.

The clouds soon put an end to that idea, but I'll see what I can salvage anyway.
 

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