Troutt Eclipse
August 1st, 2024
When I was shooting with the amazing Melissa Troutt I noticed that a lunar eclipse was going to be happening.
In the days of film with Tri-X, perhaps processed in Acufine which gave a pretend ISO of around 1600, the idea of shooting a lunar eclipse with a model in the foreground was just impossible. It wouldn’t even be worth trying.
But times have changed. With my Nikon Z7ii which can go up to an ISO of 256,000…well, who knows what is possible. Melissa was game, so I decided to give it a try. Why not?
Of course, even with the high ISO I had to shoot wide open…f/4 in the case of the lens I was using…so depth of field was an issue. No way to get both the moon and Melissa in focus at the same time. But I was able to find a bit of a balance that sort of worked.
Not the greatest photos I’ve ever taken. But I did succeed in getting both the eclipse and Melissa in the photos with a reasonable level of detail. It is incredible what is possible and how good the results can be at that absurd ISO level. Who knows…in a few years that ISO might go even higher…and I could try this again and stop down enough to get everything sharp. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility. In the film days we never would have thought anything like this would ever be possible.
Thanks to Melissa for being willing to put up with this nonsense.
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