Two evenings ago I was using the crescent moon to test some settings for shooting the upcoming total lunar eclipse, and I could see some earthshine, which is due to illumination from the earth. I decided that would be a good chance to test exposures for really digging into the darkest parts of the eclipse, although this one won’t be super dark as the moon will be right at the edge of the earth’s shadow. (The next one will be darker.)
I had been debating about the best balance of pixels on the subject vs. light gathering, and had decided to just use the bare 600 f/4, but greed got the better of me and I put on the 2X. It proved a good move.
Specific Feedback Requested
All comments welcome.
Technical Details
Is this a composite: Yes
For a focus stack I answer No to the composite question, but here with an extreme HDR I’m saying yes. Canon R5, 600 f/4 EF, extremely locked down with a Wimberley II on a big RRS tripod on a concrete surface and no breeze. IS was OFF, as it will cause the image to swim around slowly when on a tripod – you can see it clearly at this much magnification. I was shooting 1-sec bursts in full electronic shutter and hoping they would be aligned well enough to stack for NR, but no – there was enough movement in 1 sec. that I had to align them by hand in PS with Difference mode. Camera control was hands off with Canon Capture on my iPhone.
The crescent was easy – 1/20 sec (sic) gave sharpness within the limits of atmospheric turbulence. 1/10 was marginal and the eclipse will be at 4 am and a little higher in the sky so maybe the atmosphere will be a little calmer.
Since I could see some earthshine, I kept upping the ISO to see what would be revealed. By 4000 I had something I thought would cover the darkest part of the eclipse and that I could work with for a blended exposure. The downside is that the bright crescent had a significant halo, even with the optics I could reach being clean – the front and the drop-in filter. But some tedious masking by hand gave me a result I’m pleased with.
Very nicely captured and well thought out plan. I like the sliver look vs the usual full moon capture, this is an intriguing look. I am also impressed with the sharpness of 600mm w/ 2s TC when I open the image to full size. I don’t really see anything that I would do differently for a better outcome.
Wow Diane… A lot of planning went into this and I too am surprised by the sharpness with the 2x teleconverter. This was just really well thought out. The blend came out really nice with good shadow detail (enough) and great highlight detail and sharpness even with a large crop. This should prepare you and give you encouragement for the upcoming main event. Can’t wait to see that posted.
Beautifully conceived and executed. For 1,200mm this came out really clean, at least to my uneducated eye. This is a situation where that R5 sensor comes in handy too.
I love how the edge of the crescent comes right up against the crater in the LRC, it looks really neat that way.
Really love this image and appreciate all the post processing work that went into it. I keep looking at your 2 raw files and can’t figure out or even imagine what the top file could have even contributed to the end result! Am I missing something? I’m not even really seeing the dark part of the moon in either raw file, I guess a little bit in the top image but not as good as you made the end result look! I know nothing about composites and don’t even have the tools to do it but it’s very intriguing to me! I think I just always thought a composite was putting together all the best shots of the same thing to make it look perfect! But obviously not!
Thanks everyone! @Vanessa_Hill, in the LR Develop module I increased the exposure to .75 and Clarity to +54 and it brought out the detail you see in the final image. I posted the unadjusted raw file. When I was shooting, experience with previous attempts to capture earthshine and with the dimmest areas of lunar eclipses told me I had a workable file. It looked a bit more detailed on the camera screen.
I guess it might be better considered an HDR instead of a composite.
Excellent, maybe some tiny NR on the shadow but that is it for me as critique.
I saw and shot the same moon with handheld 500pf for fun while setting up Astro imaging and had to get to iso 6400 to get enough earth glow so I appreciate what you had to do to get this.
Moon stacking is not easy surprisedly if one has tried, so very well done.
