The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
Monday I had the tracker set up with the Canon R5 and 100-500 to do a runthrough of setting up and shooting the sequence for the upcoming total solar eclipse. I can’t use the telescope due to the desire to shoot a burst at second and third contacts to try for the diamond ring and Baily’s beads. It looked very clear after sunset so I did a “GoTo” to the moon and shot the crescent with a range of exposures. Some earthshine was visible and it seemed like a good subject for the Dark challenge.
Specific Feedback
All comments welcome!
Technical Details
Two exposures, 1/8 sec and 4 sec, composited by hand. With no atmosphere to diffuse light, there is a very sudden brightness change at the terminator and it was a challenge to make the two blend reasonably well.
I can easily understand that the blending was a challenge. I tried it myself and didn’t come near this result. The moon is a very interesting subject when the light is so skew, much more than the full moon. Without your skill there would probably be light spill of the crescent over the earthshine part. Great result.
“Earthshine” is called “asgrauw licht” in Dutch, an ancient, obsolete expression meaning more ore less “ashy grey light”, a nice description of the faint light that is reflected by the earth upon the moon.
Thanks, @HennyJA and @Han_Schutten! Here are the two raw files before any correction in LR. These are cropped by about 50%. I’ll be shooting the eclipse at about 400mm in order to be able to record the faint details of the corona several sun diameters out, so I shot this exposure sequence the same to hope to get some idea how many stops I can go before flare from the brightest inner corona swamps detail. It looks better then the lens I had with the 2017 eclipse. Some of the flare is probably from the atmosphere – pollution and humidity. I’ll get what I can get…
This one turned out very well. The shaded regions are especially nice. I went out the other night and ran a series of photos, but did not get the shaded region like you got here. Awesome shot…Jim
Thanks, @Jim_Zablotny! I was a bit surprised how long an exposure it took to bring out the earthshine, which was subtly visible to the eye. (We have an amazing dynamic range.) Without a tracker, getting a long enough exposure would be difficult, but I have done it a couple of times before with a 600mm f/4.
