Blood Moon with Bloodgum Tree - Sydney (yesterday morning's Lunar Eclipse). Auto WB.EOS M6 + EF-M 32mm f/1.4 STM lens - Tungsten WB used.
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LUNAR ECLIPSE (Blood Moon) shot with the EOS M6 + 32mm f/1.4 lens.
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I had been planning yesterday's eclipse for two years and was going to set up a large lens with a mechanical Equatorial Mount at a Dark Sky Location to allow me a long exposure with considerable detail on the morning in question (yesterday). That all came to an end.
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I was not going to miss out on yet another celestial event and we've had some misfortune with the weather during past Eclipses, especially Solar Eclipses. But as luck would have it, a very large kidney stone that was residing in my right kidney for some years, decided to try to exit. But it was far too large to pass. I'd produced this mineral in my kidneys as a result of eating far too many nuts - which are high in oxalates. It turns out that 1.2kg of nuts per week was far too many. And at the size of a 6 carat diamond, this final stone simply blocked the tiny 3-4mm uretal tube from the Kidney to the Bladder (not the urethra, which is much wider). The surgeons fitted a stent between the Kidney and my bladder to bypass the stone temporarily. But this eventually ruptured a major blood vessel on the morning of my surgery to laser the stone... and I ended up being cauterized internally after leaving with another new stent installed plus a urinary catheter, both of which were extraordinarily painful to endure for an entire week. There was no way I could drive, let alone carry heavy gear to photograph the Blood Moon yesterday. So after careful consideration, I decided to capture the Blood Moon with my EOS M camera on the driveway near a neighbor's house because it was small and light enough to carry outside. Using my R-series cameras was absolutely out of the question as I could only use one hand. I fitted the camera onto a tripod and carried it outside at 3am. I had intended to drive to a spot in the Blue Mountains near Mount Wilson but the police shut down the road that same night after finding a body in a burnt out vehicle just 40m from where I would have parked.
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I set up a lightweight carbon-fiber tripod on my driveway and took several pictures whilst dragging my fluid collection bag on the ground (which fed to two pouches strapped to my leg under my sweat pants... and unable to bend over with the stent & drainage tube inside me. This morning they removed the tubes and the stent (which is yet another horrible experience since no anesthetic was used for this procedure) and I can't describe the euphoria of getting my full mobility and independence back.
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But I did manage to capture several shots of the Total Lunar Eclipse with my EOS M6 camera and my iPhone 15 Pro Max. I was not happy with the pictures from the iPhone because when the telephoto lenses were used, the image quality was poor. And when the wide lens with the larger sensor were used, the moon was far too tiny to appreciate. I was hoping to update my iPhone this year and also to buy some new RF lenses... but I ended up spending the money I'd saved on my surgeries and medications. Not everything is covered here in Australia. I believe there's another Lunar Eclipse in a couple of years so perhaps I'll get another chance at this. I did get some nice pictures of one in 2022 (see images below).
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EOS M6 + EF-M 32mm f/1.4 STM lens - Tungsten WB used.
EOS M6 + EF-M 32mm f/1.4 STM lens - Tungsten WB used.
[ATTACH alt="iPhone 15 Pro Max - The moon looks too small in this image from the "main" 24mm camera."]media_4497272[/ATTACH]
iPhone 15 Pro Max - The moon looks too small in this image from the "main" 24mm camera.
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LUNAR ECLIPSE IMAGES from 2021 - shot with the EOS M6
Below are two images taken back in 2021 when we had a PARTIAL Lunar Eclipse (Blood Moon) and I found that using a long focal length of 800mm (without factoring in the APS-C crop of 1.6x) left me with very little exposure time. Either you exposed correctly and ended up with motion blur due to the Earth's rotation, or you had far too little light to work with when the moon is in shadow. It's a fine balance that I've found is quite hard to calculate since the luminosity of the moon varies so much during an eclipse. The exposure times and the ISO requirements are changing all the time if the Eclipse is brief.
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May 29, 2021 - EOS M6 + EF 100-400mmL II lens with EF 2x Extender
May 29, 2021 - EOS M6 + EF 100-400mmL II + EF 2x Extender.
