Blood Moon

 Last Monday night, we had a Blood Moon.

This, in short, is where the earth gets in the way of the light of the sun. And the moon, which usually reflects the sun, is in our shadow.

This event makes for some fun photo-shooting.


If you call laying in the grass in the backyard at 11pm fun.


First, I did some internet reading on taking moon shots. I learned that I needed to slow down my shutter speed and increase the aperture while using the longest lens possible. Thankfully, I have a 300mm one. And then, you gradually increase the shutter speed, while making sure that there is enough aperture to compensate.

 I also knew I needed my tripod so I got myself all settled in the backyard, the tripod out....when I found out that my tripod screw was stripped.

Whoops.

So plan B....using an overturned lawn chair, I propped the lens up on the arm while I lay in the ground.

This was what it looked like when I first got out there; around 9:30pm.

(These were all shot at 300mm)

{ISO:125, Aperture: f 1/11, Shutter: 1/10sec}

I kept playing with the  aperture shutter and eventually got this:

{ISO: 125, Aperture: f 1/13, Shutter: 1/160}

I found that f/13 was perfect.

As the light got less, I had to go even slower on the shutter.

  {ISO: 125, Aperture f/13, Shutter 1/100}

This was super hard and was one in about 50.

{ISO 125, Aperture f/13, Shutter 1/60}

Finally the whole moon was gone, and started turning red.


This was where I had some trouble....because of the low light, I opened up the aperture a bit.

If you look real close at the photo below, it is blurry, but the red coming across the moon had lots of noise in it.

{ISO 125, Aperture f/5.6, Shutter 1sec.}

I even shot once in "effects" under night shots....

{ISO 3200, Aperture f/5.6, Shutter .77sec}

Too much light and noise.

 {ISO 125, Aperture f/5.6, Shutter 1sec.}

I played around with it manually and decreased the shutter speed.

By now it was almost 1am and the other side of the moon was beginning to light up.....time to go to bed.


But I have three more of these moon eclipses in the next year to look forward to....more time to practice.

"The heavens declare the glory of God, 

and the sky above proclaim His handiwork."

~Psalm 19:1