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The exposures hogsters are reporting are at odds with my experience last night. I was using about 9000 and 12800 ISO @1/15 @f/4.

Some phone snaps of the monitor:

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CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Thank you for posting two examples. Alas, you didn't store the files so we could inspect the EXIF. Please add another replay and be sure to store the attachments.

wrangler5 Loc: Missouri

Indeed it did not do a great job. But that lens is all I have that's longer than 60mm, and I didn't want to mess with a tripod. The images are little more than snapshots, and given how shaky I seemed to be with the monopod I'm pleased they came out as well as they did. (FWIW, exposure was 1/160 @ f/5.6 - wide open at this focal length - @ ISO 200. Quick and dirty Lightroom processing of RAW file for brightness/shadows but no contrast or sharpening adjustments, and export to JPG which came out surprisingly small even though I took off any size limit on the export - RAW file was 16MB but JPG was only 270KB.)

r1ch Loc: Colorado

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r1ch Loc: Colorado

It is still a good image. I was looking online at blood moon images and there are very few I would consider great images. Some of them were stacked so though my image was not good, it was not bad compared to others and yours is even better. Good job.

wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

What is your mirrorless camera? It sounds like it is defective. My Olympus system will amplify the EVR well beyond my film camera's OVF abilities. And where is this "lag" coming from? My present E-M1 mkIII is 60 fps and the new OM-1 is 120 fps. The viewfinder of both can be setup with no "black out" of images for a continuous view of the scene. And Olympus is not the only brand that does this. It may be time to upgrade your mirrorless camera body. That is probably the best "work around" for your problems.

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

I shoot with Sony, I have not experienced your problem.

fetzler Loc: North West PA

Well my Olympus EM1 MkIII has Procapture mode that can record up to 60fps. Recording begins with a half shutter press and continues when the shutter is fully pressed. In this way one gets frames before you press the shutter. Remember with a DSLR you can't see anything with the mirror up. I also can't record much to my brain in a 2-3 second burst. Also make sure that you set up your EVF to simulate an OVF if the scene is really dark. The Live View screen on a DSLR will behave similarly to the EVF.

fetzler Loc: North West PA

ditto

gwilliams6

Absolutely no such issues with the EVF in my Sony mirrorless A1, A7RIV, A7SIII. The auto gain feature of the EVF will display even the darkest items and the focus has no trouble " finding" them whatsoever.

Not sure what mirrorless EVF you were using and how it was set up. More user error likely than anything with the mirrorless EVF.

I shot SLRs and DSLRs for over 40 years and moved to mirrorless. EVF have evolved to the point where there is no longer ANY advantage to any OVF, really. I have 9.2 million dot EVFs with up to 240 fps refresh rate, just amazing.

And I get an actual preview and review of all my exposure settings, plus a histogram. No OVF can ever do that.

Before you condemn EVFs vs OVF, do better research and know your settings and how to use them properly.

Cheers and best to you.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

"Read The *Fine* Manual" is the operating sentiment here. I think you can do what you need to do, although you didn't state what camera you have in your original post.

There is absolutely no need to use automatic focus to photograph the moon. Set manual focus and confirm it with focus magnification and/or focus confirmation "shimmers".

Perhaps use auto exposure, if you arrive at a compensation that tracks well for the size of the moon in a dark frame.

I think you'll find that mirrorless cameras made in the last 2-3 years don't have much of an issue with viewfinder lag, and that they have settings to handle almost any situation. In the meantime, it's not 'versus,' it is 'and,' as we transition the industry away from flipping and flopping mirrors.

bwana Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada

No, haven't noticed the problem with Sony mirrorless. The A7S, A7 III and A7R III will readily focus on a bright star or any portion of the Moon.

bwa

Hip Coyote

I’m kinda confused on several issues

- noise in the evf? I don’t think this matters to the final image. That is just a broadcast of a simulation of what the final exposure will look like. It does not simulate noise however. EVF or the rear screen all the same. Like televisions, they may have different resolutions.

- I did not shoot the moon this time. (Babysitting a 1 year old grand baby wore me out.). But the times I have shot the moon I put my mirrorless in manual everything except ISO, set an aperture I wanted, manually focused the image and adjusted the exposure until I saw what I wanted and pressed the shutter. Manual focus as well and just leave it be after that. The moon is not going anywhere.

On my Oly when I take my face away from the EVF and the rear screen goes on automatically. Makes finding the moon rather easy. Find it, put your face on the EVF and shoot a single shot. Chimp and repeat. I disagree with those who say turn off the wysiwyg feature of the EVF to make it look more like a DSLR view...the wysiwyg feature is how I overcome the oddities of the exposure to get it in the range of being ok....and always look at the histogram. Focus peaking can help, as others suggested.

- Mirrorless can shoot faster frames per second than dlsrs because of the electronic shutter. I don’t know why this would matter in that I’d simply point at the moon and press the shutter to get one shot per press. Why the need for rapid fire? Spot meter on the moon.

- the moon is much brighter than people think which is why most images of it are blown out. The EVF will help you with this. I was surprised how much I had to stop down to get a decent shot.

- I attached an original moon shot and an edited version (I think they are the same..I goofed on the exif data when I saved the jpeg after editing) ...but were shot the same nite. The settings were for m43 400 mm lens (800 ff equivalent, f6.7, ss of 500 and ISO 200...hand held, spot metering.) In other words, the moon is bright. I would think on an eclipse, it is of course, not nearly as bright, but as the moon disappears behind the (penumbra?) it still has some light...up the ISO or open up the camera or reduce the ss.

A lot of editing seemed necessary to make the shot look ok.

- Lastly, the app Photopills is most excellent. It will tell you how fast your ss has to be to avoid blurring of the moon. But it takes a deep dive to understand the app. (I am only now understanding part of it..but a fun learning adventure.) I went down a rabbit hole the night of the eclipse and learned a lot from their on line videos. An amazing amount of information on that app. it does simulations, depth of field, field of view, and the list goes on and on. It will even tell you what shots are possible and when...such as a full moon between the Eiffel Tower legs. Its is quite amazing.

Orignal unedited shot

r1ch Loc: Colorado

I totally agree with this!
The Canon R5 works the same way. To be able to see the histogram in the EVF or the back of the camera AND what the exposure will actually look like just changes the way I shoot for night photography. Focus peaking allows me to use manual focus lenses with confidence and opens up a whole world of vintage lenses with the right adapter which was not possible with Canon EF (well you could use Nikon lenses on Canon).

The AF eye tracking for birds in flight, wildlife and portraiture is another game changer. While many previous upgrades to cameras were minimal these features alone are worth the price of admission.

Once these features find themselves on the lower end cameras everyone will need to upgrade. Simple as that.

Hip Coyote

Wrangler, I do not want to hijack this thread...but I downloaded your image and edited it...with 30 seconds of editing, the photo was vastly improved...it is a good shot, particularly with a kit lens. Can I suggest you start a new thread, perhaps in the Photo Critique Section (which I moderate) and post there? I thnk you will be pleased.