Photographing the Super Blood Wolf Moon was a real comedy of errors. I marched outside with my tripod, lenses, and warm clothes at 11:40pm and it really didn’t take long for my hands to start screaming in pain from the epic cold (by Maryland standards, anyway; between the low temperature and the gusty winds, the wind chill was in the low single digits, if not 0 F). I started with my paparazzi lens and it was a bit of a debacle because it requires manual focusing and…well, let’s just say I’m overdue for a visit to my ophthalmologist. My prescription is wildly out of date and my vision’s not so great because of that, especially at night. Therefore, that was a failure.
I switched over to my regular telephoto lens so I could rely on autofocusing. By and large that worked, although my stiff hands and inability to clearly see the buttons complicated things as I attempted different settings to maximize the clarity of the moon. Even with my tripod, there was camera shake from me depressing the shutter, so I sprinted inside for my remote control…only to realize that the battery was dead. I went back to manually depressing the shutter and trying to avoid shivering too much to reduce camera shake. It didn't really work; none of the photos are crystal clear.
I also gave my point-and-shoot Nikon with the powerful digital zoom a shot. For whatever reason—I don’t know if it was my shivering or the low light of the moon or what—the camera really struggled to autofocus. Half the time I couldn’t even find the damn moon in the viewfinder. I was fumbling, hitting buttons I didn’t even mean to hit. The camera was like, “lol wut no.” So that, too, was a bit of a loss.
Anyway, about 95% of the photos I snapped were a loss. A few turned out okay (not great--just semi-okay) and a few have flaws are intriguing. Even without fabulous photos, and even despite the cold, the whole experience was worth it because that moon sure was striking!
Photographing the Super Blood Wolf Moon was a real comedy of errors. I marched outside with my tripod, lenses, and warm clothes at 11:40pm and it really didn’t take long for my hands to start screaming in pain from the epic cold (by Maryland standards, anyway; between the low temperature and the gusty winds, the wind chill was in the low single digits, if not 0 F). I started with my paparazzi lens and it was a bit of a debacle because it requires manual focusing and…well, let’s just say I’m overdue for a visit to my ophthalmologist. My prescription is wildly out of date and my vision’s not so great because of that, especially at night. Therefore, that was a failure.
I switched over to my regular telephoto lens so I could rely on autofocusing. By and large that worked, although my stiff hands and inability to clearly see the buttons complicated things as I attempted different settings to maximize the clarity of the moon. Even with my tripod, there was camera shake from me depressing the shutter, so I sprinted inside for my remote control…only to realize that the battery was dead. I went back to manually depressing the shutter and trying to avoid shivering too much to reduce camera shake. It didn't really work; none of the photos are crystal clear.
I also gave my point-and-shoot Nikon with the powerful digital zoom a shot. For whatever reason—I don’t know if it was my shivering or the low light of the moon or what—the camera really struggled to autofocus. Half the time I couldn’t even find the damn moon in the viewfinder. I was fumbling, hitting buttons I didn’t even mean to hit. The camera was like, “lol wut no.” So that, too, was a bit of a loss.
Anyway, about 95% of the photos I snapped were a loss. A few turned out okay (not great--just semi-okay) and a few have flaws are intriguing. Even without fabulous photos, and even despite the cold, the whole experience was worth it because that moon sure was striking!