How to Photograph a Lunar Eclipse With Your Smartphone
If you’re here, you’re probably, like me, super stoked for the lunar eclipse we’ll be able to see right here in Boston tonight. Or maybe my post is how you found out it was happening in the first place - in which case, welcome!
Fingers crossed the clouds hold off, because if they do, we should be in for a pretty incredible night. And since I know most of us will immediately pull out our phones and try to capture it, I wanted to put together a few simple tips that should help you actually nail your photos tonight.
You definitely don’t need a professional camera or a giant telephoto lens to come away with something cool. Your phone is more capable than you probably think-you just need to know how to help it out a little.
Timing and Positioning For The Eclipse Tonight
If you're planning to photograph tonight's eclipse from Boston, the two things you really need to know are when to look and where to point your phone. The eclipse technically begins at 9:23 PM tonight, August 27, but the early penumbral stage is subtle. The much more obvious partial eclipse begins around 10:33 PM, which is when you'll really start seeing Earth's shadow move across the Moon.
The best part of the night comes around 12:12 AM, when the eclipse reaches maximum. At that point, roughly 96% of the Moon will be inside Earth's darker umbral shadow, making this an extremely deep partial lunar eclipse. That's when I'd make absolutely sure you're outside and ready to see it! After maximum, the shadow will gradually move away, with the partial phase ending around 1:51 AM.
Positioning should actually be pretty favorable for us here in Boston. Around maximum eclipse, the Moon will be roughly 37° above the horizon, so you won't need a completely unobstructed view down to the horizon. Look generally toward the southern part of the sky as midnight approaches. If you’re like us, and around the Bunker Hill Monument you’ll be able to see the moon riiiiight above the Bill Russell Bridge.
And remember, the Moon won't stay in one place. It'll continue moving across the sky throughout the eclipse, so the composition that looks perfect at 10:30 PM may look completely different by 12:12 AM. If you're setting up a tripod or planning a time-lapse, give yourself plenty of room in the frame for the Moon to move.
If you only remember one thing: be outside by about 11:30 PM, look south, and be ready for maximum eclipse at 12:12 AM. Then all we need is for the Boston clouds to cooperate.
Start By Turning Off Your Flash
This sounds obvious, but let's get it out of the way first! Your flash isn't going to illuminate the Moon. It's roughly 240,000 miles away.
More importantly, having the flash fire can brighten nearby objects and make it harder for your phone to expose the night sky properly. Turn it off before you start shooting.
Don't Just Point Your Phone At The Moon And Hit The Shutter
This is probably the biggest mistake people make.
Your phone sees a giant dark sky with one very bright object in the middle of it. If you let the camera make every decision automatically, it can expose for the darkness and completely blow out the Moon.
Instead, tap directly on the Moon on your screen to tell your phone that's what you care about. On many phones, you'll then be able to drag the exposure control downward - that’s that little sun icon, drag that down!
Keep lowering the exposure until you can actually see detail on the surface of the Moon.
During the brighter portions of the eclipse, this can make an enormous difference.
Use A Tripod If You Have One
Keeping your phone still is probably the single easiest way to improve your eclipse photos.
Night photography requires slower shutter speeds than shooting during the day, and even tiny movements can make an image blurry. A small smartphone tripod is perfect, but don't give up if you don't have one.
Prop your phone against something solid. Use a railing. Rest it against a bag. Find any safe way to keep it from moving while you take the photo.
And here's another trick: use your phone's timer.
Set a three-second timer, press the shutter button, and take your hands off the phone. That prevents the little shake you create simply by touching the screen.
Be Careful With Digital Zoom
You're going to want to zoom in… Obviously. The Moon looks tiny on a smartphone's wide camera. But there's a big difference between switching to your phone's actual telephoto camera and simply digitally enlarging an image.
If your phone has a dedicated optical telephoto lens - 3x, 5x, or whatever your particular model offers - use it. Once you start pushing far beyond the phone's optical capabilities, you're largely cropping and enlarging the image, and quality can fall apart quickly.
Sometimes you'll actually get a better result by shooting at a lower zoom level and cropping the image afterward. Also, don’t sleep on keeping the photos wide - sometimes it’s cool to see what the world looks like when something like this is happening!
Night Mode Isn't Always Your Friend
This one surprises people.
Night Mode is fantastic for a dark landscape because it combines longer exposures and computational photography to pull detail out of the shadows.
But the Moon isn't a dark landscape.
It's bright.
During a lunar eclipse, its brightness also changes dramatically as it moves through Earth's shadow. A long Night Mode exposure can blur the Moon, blow out brighter portions, or make the image look completely different from what you're actually seeing.
Experiment with it, especially during totality when the Moon becomes much darker, but don't assume Night Mode automatically means a better eclipse photo.
Clean Your Lens!
Seriously, this one is important!
Before you take any pictures, wipe off your camera lenses.
Our phones spend all day in our hands, pockets, bags, and on tables. A tiny fingerprint or layer of oil across the lens can create huge halos around bright objects at night.
It takes five seconds and can make a surprisingly big difference.
Final Thoughts From Bunker Hill Media
The biggest thing to remember is that your smartphone doesn't need to imitate a professional camera.
Use its strengths.
Keep it steady, control the exposure, use the optical telephoto camera if your phone has one, and don't go crazy with digital zoom. Most importantly, think about the photograph you're making rather than simply trying to get the biggest possible picture of the Moon.
And take more photos than you think you need.
A lunar eclipse changes dramatically from beginning to end, and the settings that work beautifully when the Moon first enters Earth's shadow may be completely wrong once totality begins.
You might not walk away with a NASA-worthy close-up of the lunar surface.
But you can absolutely walk away with a photograph worth keeping.
