I Tried Something New

A few nights ago, we got the privilege of viewing a lunar eclipse. People have also been calling it a Worm Blood Moon. I guess it is rare, I am no astrologist. I am, however, someone who likes cool looking skies.

I made the decision to stay up to try and get a decent photo of this phenomenon a few hours before it was supposed to take place. This eclipse would not hit totality until around 2:00 AM. So after convincing Becca to stay up with me, once the time came, I grabbed my camera, a tripod, and we went to the field right outside our apartment.

I Don't Know What I Am Doing

So as I mentioned, I am no astrologist. I am also no astro-photographer. I think it is cool, but I do not have the equipment, nor the patience to focus on a subject such as astro-photography. Huge props to those who can handle it.

With that being said, I had no clue on what I was doing. I did a quick Google search right before we went outside, but the rest was learning in the field. I set my aperture between f/11, set a long exposure time, and just hoped for the best. One thing I didn't think about entirely, especially at 2 AM, was that the moon is moving AND we are moving. That results in some motion blur, which I found pretty cool. It is always fun when a mistake ends up being a cool-looking image.

Getting The Hang Of It (Kind Of)

So with this being an eclipse, I had a limited time window to get something, anything decent. I learned that our planet is moving at thousands of miles an hour, and the moon is doing the same thing, so I raised my shutter speed to something a bit faster. With me switching the Fuji, I am dealing with crop sensors here, which perform worse in low light. So with the equipment I have, I could only raise my shutter speed so much before I had to start pumping the ISO and opening up my aperture (both things you don't necessarily want to do in this scenario).

After frantically trying to find a balance, I took my first photo that didn't look like crap. Sure, it's not the best, but it is a cool photo of a blood moon that I took. Did I have a shallower depth of field? For sure. Was my ISO so high that the noise was annoying to deal with in post? Abso-freaking-lutely. But, am I proud of this image? Hell yeah I am.

I Needed More

So after getting the hang of it in an open field, I kinda got bored. I was just getting the same image over and over. I didn't have the ultra zoom lens to where I could see the flag waving on the moon in zero gravity, so I knew I wasn't going to get the best detail, but that creative hunger inside of me was growling.

We packed up the setup, and moved closer to the house where there were some trees. This is where it got interesting. This was early Friday morning, where those high winds were starting up. I had a vision of photographing the moon through trees to get this creepy looking image. The big problem with that was the wind was waving the branches like no other, so my shutter speed needed to be FAST to freeze the branches, but also low enough to let in enough light to see the moon.

So after fiddling with the settings a bunch, I switched to manual focus (something I should have been doing from the beginning), opened up the aperture to a shallow depth of field, and only got the moon in focus. This made the branches blurry, but you can still tell they are there. Was this photo an exact replica of the vision I had in my head? No, but I am happy I got this close.

It Was Fun While It Lasted

I overall enjoyed this experience. Will I pursue astro-photography after this? Probably not. Like I said before, it was a battle getting the equipment I have to work with what I wanted to do, but I am proud of the results. I will probably only pursue astro if there is something cool happening where I am at, I don't have to buy special equipment for it, and of course I won't burn my sensor trying to get a shot.

A big lesson I learned from this is how to scrap together a good shot when I didn't think one was possible. I don't have the strongest photo of this blood moon. I don't have super detailed images of the moon either. What I do have are MY pictures of this moon, and I got creative with it that made sense to me. I am proud of that.

So I guess my message at the end of this rings the same tune as some other blogs: just go make stuff YOUR way, because everyone else is doing it the "normal" way. No one can do things the way you can.