But when the total eclipse begins, you'll want to brighten your exposure to make sure the whole moon is well-exposed, rather than just the bright part.īecause you're likely shooting with a long lens and the moon will be moving through the sky, you'll want to keep the shutter speed relatively fast (ideally no slower than 1/2 sec).
A good starting point for the partial eclipse is to start at ISO 100, with an f/8 aperture and a shutter speed of somewhere between 1/125-1/250 sec. There aren't any hard and fast settings for shooting the blood moon, as they'll likely need to change in different phases of the eclipse. If you're including a landmark for foreground interest, focus on that.
You may be able to rely on autofocus for your shot, but be prepared to switch to manual focus, which can also help you avoid having to refocus every time you take a snap. This means you'll be able to tweak the exposure, contrast and clarity to bring out as much detail as possible.Īttach your longest lens and switch it into manual mode (usually denoted by an 'M' on the mode dial), as photographing a blood moon requires a bit of trial and error with your ISO and shutter speed. Again, most night-sky photography uses very long exposures, but with the moon belting out light you’ll probably be shooting in the hundredths of a second in the partial eclipse.įor starters, make sure your camera is shooting in raw+JPEG mode, as you'll likely want the extra editing leeway that raw files give you. Ordinarily for night-sky photography you’d shoot the widest possible aperture to get as much light in as possible, but with for a bright Moon you’ll be able to stop down a bit. The hole in your lens through which light passes. With a bright moon you can keep this low, but you might need to push it up for blood moon total eclipse.Īperture. The measure of how sensitive your camera is to light – the higher the number the faster it reacts to light hitting it. But if you have one, it's well worth taking one to your chosen spot to give you that extra leeway. In many cases, the moon will actually be so bright that you’ll be shooting exposures fast enough to not need a tripod.
You also don't really have to worry too much about star trackers or blended exposures either.
With the Moon reflecting the maximum amount of light possible, you can forget about worrying about the 500 rule, which is an astrophotography formula where you divide the number 500 by the focal length of your lens to give you your maximum exposure time. If you can tolerate the late night in some places (allow us to recommend high-sugar cereal bars and a big cup of coffee), you’ll be rewarded, because unlike a lot of night-sky photography, getting a decent snap is actually pretty straightforward.
How to photograph the super blood moon with your camera During the partial eclipse, the moon will just be starting to get red, but it should be completely red from the times in the second column above.
Super blood moon times (May 26), from Cityįor the fortunate places that are likely to get full visibility of the blood moon eclipse, the key times are the 14 minutes or so between when the total eclipse begins and ends.