The Blood Moon on Auto?

Saturday 4 August 2018, 13:13 by Tanja Thomas | 10,339 views | 2 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

I couldn't see, let alone photograph, the blood moon or lunar eclipse from the States. So I was very curious about the results from my photographer friends in the Netherlands.

I nearly fell off my chair when I saw what was possible with a Panasonic Lumix DC-FZ82 with a 20-1200mm optical zoom!

Camera: Nikon 5100, Settings: f/6.3, 1/160 second, 1600 ISO, 300mm
We had just experienced the "moon dance" with the planet Venus here in Methow. While photographing this phenomenon, I discovered that capturing objects like these requires quite a bit of skill and attention. Especially with a DSLR camera.

Planets and the moon remain difficult to photograph, despite all the experience you gain with them.

Chorizo slices

I waited patiently for the photos of the beautiful blood moon and lunar eclipse to appear online. At first, photos of dark skies with tiny little red dots started appearing, probably taken with mobile phones.

There were also beautiful photos with huge, unnatural-looking moons and fantastic subjects in the foreground. From these photos, I could see that a lot of attention had gone into them and that they had also undergone some editing.


Photos of hilarious chorizo slices could also easily pass for the blood moon without glasses, or for people with poor eyesight. What caught my attention more, however, were the photos taken by two friends.

I knew that these people did not exactly have cameras with a huge zoom range. Nor did they have much experience photographing planets or moons.

Wow!

Their photos were of astonishing quality to me. The moon was very large, simple and clear in the frame. After asking a few questions about the photos, it soon became clear that they had used so-called mirrorless compact or bridge cameras.

These types of camera have fixed zoom lenses with a huge range. And they had simply used the automatic settings...

The photo below, for example, was taken by Rian Graat with a Canon SX720HS Powershot in automatic mode. She was leaning over the edge of a tractor and did not even use a tripod.

Photo: Rian Graat with Canon SX720HS Powershot

Canon PowerShot SX720 HS

The Canon PowerShot SX720 HS is a compact camera with 40X optical zoom (24-960mm!), allowing you to capture distant subjects without losing image quality.

Photos: Monique Loman with Panasonic Lumix DC-FZ82

Panasonic Lumix DC-FZ82

The Panasonic Lumix DC-FZ82 is a bridge camera, also with a fixed lens and an impressive 60x optical zoom. Like the camera mentioned above, you can clearly capture subjects from a long way away thanks to its enormous zoom range.


This camera even has a Post Focus function, which lets you decide after taking the photo which point you want to focus on. The built-in image stabilisation and fast lens allow you to take clear handheld photos in low-light conditions.

Monique used the iA, the intelligent Auto setting, on this camera and did not change any of the settings. She did not use a tripod either, although she did lean on a fence for support, and zoomed in as far as possible.

She explained that when the moon slowly became visible again, she could not zoom in quite as far because the bright moonlight made focusing more difficult. In hindsight, she would have chosen a different automatic setting: Automatic (A) with an "expressive" filter.

She thought her moon photos were too dark, and according to her, the Expressive filter on the camera would make the photos much more colourful and attractive.

Photos: Monique Loman with Panasonic Lumix DC-FZ82

DSLR or compact/bridge camera?

All in all, these experiences with this type of camera gave me food for thought. I have always been a great advocate of the DSLR camera and would never even have considered using compact cameras.

However, the technology and popularity of these cameras are growing rapidly, even among professionals. A lightweight camera with lightweight, optically stabilised lenses, whether fixed or not, with an enormous zoom range, and results that are visibly good in quality, is not such a bad idea.

Perhaps it could be something for me as a second camera? In any case, I was hugely impressed by the photos and the experiences my friends described. It has prompted me to do some more research into this type of camera.

Photos: Michelle Peeters with an Olympus E-M5 Mark II
With this type of camera, less advanced photographers with limited photography knowledge can also achieve truly astonishing results!

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