This week felt like deja vu. I had a busy weekend and didn’t make a video, Monday came and went and still no video. Then I found out there was a Blood Moon Tuesday night (actually Wednesday morning) so I figured I’d try and shoot that. Back in week 10 I tried to shoot the blood moon but it was too cloudy. I’ve also tried to shoot a few other astrological events, but they didn’t turn out. I was hoping this time everything would work out, but it didn’t.
The night started out great, clear skies, great weather. I was excited, I thought I had a good chance of capturing the Blood Moon, even though the weather report forecasted cloudy skies.
Me, wishing I had some coffee.
I started doing a few time-lapses from my back porch. The moon moves very quickly and it’s pretty hard to get a good time-lapse of it. It’s also very bright, so getting the proper exposure is also tough. Knowing this I figured I’d try a few different exposures, lenses and intervals to see what I’d get.
I shot at
f11, 60, ISO 100
f10, 60, ISO 100
f4, .3, ISO 1600
f4.5, 1.o, ISO 100
f11, 1/60, ISO 100
f4, 0.3, ISO 1600
I used 2 lenses a Zoom and a Prime. The prime was the Canon 300mm f4. The zoom was the Canon 28-135mm f3.5 to 5.6 (The kit lens). I shot it on the Canon 7D.
The 28-135mm Kit Lens.
I used the Canon TC-80N3 Timer Remote Control/Intervalometer. I used a few different intervals 2, 3 and 5 seconds.
The interval you choose will dramatically change the look of the time-lapse. The longer the interval the faster things move (generally). If you have fast moving objects you generally want a quicker interval, if you have slow moving objects a slower one. But it all depends on the look you want. I suggest trying various intervals, and trying time lapses of different things to get a feel for what you like best. Practice, Practice, Practice.
I shot for about 2 hours when the moon was rising. Around midnight it got really cloudy and I stopped shooting and went to bed. I woke back up around 5am and went out to shoot some more (the actual eclipse was scheduled for 6:25am). I couldn’t see the moon from my back porch anymore so I jumped in my car and tried to find a good viewing place. The best place I found was the parking lot of my local grocery store. Not an ideal location, but time was running out.
I shot the last shot (the blood moon) from the field by the parking lot, certainly not the best location, but time was running out.
It was pretty cloudy, but I set up my camera anyway, hoping that it would clear. It cleared up for a few minutes, and I got one time-lapse of the Blood Moon (the last shot in the video). I didn’t have a good focus on it, I had to guess because I started it when the moon was covered by the clouds. I consider it a failure.
Camera set up, that little dot is the moon.
To be honest, I wasn’t happy with any of the time-lapse, they all had issues. I had exposure issues on some, there were clouds in others, and they were all jittery. But I was already late on my deadline so I decided to use them anyway.
I did some research on why they were jittery and I haven’t found a good answer yet. Some say it could be image stabilization, I left mine on by accident, so it could be that. Others say it’s intervals. I need to do more tests and more research.
I created the time-lapses in Adobe After Effects. I edited them in Adobe Premiere.
The font was Palatino Linotype. The song was “Little Planet” from bensound.com. I rushed them both. The font was the first one that looked OK. And the music was the first song that I heard that I thought was OK. Normally I spend more time on picking them, but I was already late on the video, I wasn’t happy with the footage, and I just wanted to get it done. I hate that feeling, but it is what it is.
Bensound.com has creative commons music, free for non-commercial use.
The next blood moon is April 4th, 2015. I could easily give up and not try to capture it, I remember telling myself not to try and shoot any more astrological events. But I can’t do it, there’s something inside of me that wants to get it right, and I won’t be satisfied until I get some good footage of it. So next year I’m sure I’ll stay up all night and try and get the footage of the, so far, Elusive Blood Moon.
You can watch Week 34: The Elusive Blood Moon here.
