The main purpose for traveling up to Red Hill was to see if I could get a photograph of the blood red Moon, in totality, as it sank behind the Brindabella Ranges, with the lights of Woden Valley in the foreground. In my dreams, it was a spectacular photograph. The reality was quite different. An hour or so before Moonset, the ambient light of Blue Hour washed out the Moon. The photograph described above remains a dream.
What we have here is my “banker” photograph - one that I took to make sure that I had at least one photograph from my visit to Red Hill. The Moon was still high above the horizon ... but at least the Moon was in the same frame as the horizon line. A few minutes after taking this photograph, the growing daylight made the Moon almost invisible.
Still, it was not a wasted trip. I hadn’t realized that I need to make a booking to get a spot up on Red Hill. There must have been 50+ cars / 100+ people there checking out the eclipse. It was fun to be part of the event. Everybody was taking photographs. The hardware was pretty variable - there was everything from a big refractor telescope with an imaging camera through to the cameras on mobile phones. And plenty of conversations taking place between people that remained unseen from different places in the darkness. This was such a relaxed event - it played out slowly, and it provided plenty of opportunities to chat with the other people who had been drawn to this location. And when Moonset occurred just after 07:00, all we had to do was stroll 20 metres from the west-facing to the east-facing side of the ridge to enjoy the sublime orange-to-blue colors of the pre-dawn sky.
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[ Location - Red Hill, Australian Capital Territory, Australia ]
Photography notes ...
The photograph was taken using the following hardware configuration ...
(Year of manufacture indicated in braces where known.)
- Hasselblad X1D-50c Medium Format Mirrorless Digital Camera (Silver) - MFR # H-3013900 (2017).
- Hasselblad X1D GPS Module - MFR # H-3054772.
- Really Right Stuff BX1D-L Set L-Plate for Hasselblad X1D - MFR # BX1D L-PLATE SET.
- Novoflex Adapter Hasselblad V-Lenses To Hasselblad X-Mount (X1D) - MFR # HAX/HA.
- Hasselblad Carl Zeiss lens - Sonnar CF 250mm f/5.6 Superachromat lens (1987).
- FotodioX B60 Lens Hood for Select Hasselblad Telephoto CF Lenses.
- Really Right Stuff (RRS) TFC-14 Series 1 Carbon Fiber Tripod - MFR # 13996.
- Really Right Stuff (RRS) BH-30 Ball Head with Mini Screw-Knob Clamp - MFR # BH-30 PRO.
- Artisan & Artist ACAM-301N Silk Cord Strap (Black) - MFR # AAACAM301NBLK.
I acquired the input photograph (8272 x 6200 pixels) with an ISO of 3200, exposure time of 2 seconds, and aperture of f/5.6.
Post-processing ...
Finder - Removed the UHS-I SDXC card from the camera and placed it in a Lexar 25-in-1 USB card reader. Then used Finder on my MacBook Air to download the raw image file (3FR extension) from the card.
Lightroom - Imported the 3FR images.
Lightroom - Applied various basic lighting and color adjustments in the Develop module.
Lightroom - Output the image as a 16-bit TIFF image (8272 x 6200 pixels).
Photoshop - Expanded the canvas along the top and on both sides, retaining the 4:3 aspect ratio (9000 x 6750 pixels).
Photoshop - Selected these new parts of the image and used content-aware fill to blend them into the existing image.
Photoshop - Output the image as a JPEG image using the “Maximum” quality option (9000 x 6750 pixels).
PhotoSync - Copied the processed image to my iPad Mini for any final processing, review, enjoyment, and posting to social media.
@MomentsForZen #MomentsForZen #MFZ #Hasselblad #X1D #Lightroom #Sky #Night #Dark #Moon #LunarEclipse #TotalLunarEclipse #Orange #Red #BloodRed #BlueHour #WodenValley #Hills #Landscape
