Thursday, February 21, 2008

Lunar Eclipse

I'm a day late getting these posted but the eclipse was much later for us than it was out west and I just didn't have the energy to do anything last night. I went to my parent's house with my new - and soon to be returned to the store - tripod to make my best attempt at photographing the eclipse. I have learned that good equipment is absolutely crucial...let's just say that the tripod I bought (the last in the store, I should add) was garbage and not much better than holding the camera myself.
Anyway, I arrived just as the first blip in the gorgeous full moon could be seen so I had to work fast if I wanted to capture the whole thing. I struggled with the settings for a long time and eventually I just set the ISO to 400 and chose the shutter-priority auto setting in which the camera would choose the correct aperture for the shutter speed I set (1/25). That seemed to work all right although I think I would make some changes next time. Lastly, it occurred to me that using the self-timer would be a good idea and that proved to be my best choice of the night given the cheapness of my tripod!! :)
So, without further ado, here is what I shot last night. I wasn't able to capture much following the eclipse as the moon became visible again because by that point my camera had been in super-cold temperatures for over 2 hours and it drained my battery. I had a spare but my urge to be warm and in bed overpowered my willingess to spend another second outside in the dark.
I would welcome tips and advice for next time from anyone who knows what they're talking about :) :) :)





3 comments:

Alycia Hildebrand said...

Great shots!! I love how you got a bunch of different points of the night!

Jenn M said...

I think they turned out alright. I found I got better shots when I left the shutter open really long - like a full second or longer... but that also drained my batteries quite quickly too...... Anyway my suggestion is to try longer shutter speeds :)

Theresa T said...

I love that you were able to capture the running series of the eclipse.