When The Moon Hits Your Eye...

like a big piece of pepperoni pizza pie, it is Blood Moon Eclipse time. Actually, this was the first of  a lunar eclipse "tetrad": a series of four consecutive total lunar eclipses that happen at about six-month intervals. The next one is due Oct. 8, followed by blood moons April 4, 2015, and Sept. 28, 2015, unless, of course, you believe Texas televangelist pastor John Hagee, who sees the four blood moons as evidence of a future "world-shaking event" that begins to fulfill End Times prophecy. In which case, too bad. No more eclipses for you.

Blood Moon Eclipse, April 15, 2014

While I have more to say about sensors, we interrupt this blog to bring you the Blood Moon Eclipse of April 15, 2014.

First, my disclaimer: while I do own a tripod, it is not a very good one, so I don't use it very often; to compensate for this I took all my photos at 1/1000 of a second, which was fine until the full eclipse (more on this later); I used three different cameras, with three different sensors, ranging from the 1/2.3" Canon SX50 to the Micro Four Thirds Olympus OM-D E-M10, to the APS-C Sony SLT-A55. The SX50 has an amazing 50x optical zoom, giving the equivalent of a 1200mm telephoto in 35mm terms. Both the E-M10 and the A55 had the equivalent of 600mm teles

The image quality of the results with all three cameras was unexpected, and a little disappointing. The small sensor won, hands down. Maybe not in other situations, but for this particular experience, it was the better camera.

To check image quality (IQ), I used ACDSee Pro 7 and its Compare function to place images side by side and then magnify them. Generally I compared just two images in order to get the most magnification, but occasionally I'd do three or four at a time whenever I had a bunch of images that were more or less the same. Below is an SX50 to E-M10 comparison.

Remember that the E-M10 sensor is a little more than 8 times the size of the SX50. One more disclaimer: since the SX50 maximum optical zoom is 1200mm and the E-M10 max is 600mm, the E-M10 image is magnified twice as much. Still, with a sensor that is 8 times larger I expected a noticeable difference in favor of the E-M10. Not to be. The SX50 image has more apparent grain (noise), but to my eye is definitely sharper. Last disclaimer: all images were jpg format, no post processing sharpening. Some day when I have nothing better to do, I may try post processing both files. Right...

So, while I hate to become a "pixel peeper", the results of this experience were discouraging. I even (gasp) considered returning the E-M10 and saving my money for a full frame DSLR.

Nah, too damn heavy for an old guy like me. Gotta figure out how to make the E-M10 work for me, one way or another (or, just use the SX50!)...

May your nights be cloudless and bright.