If you were to ask my wife why I do all of the hard things I do, she’ll tell you that it is because I can. And she isn’t wrong. I genuinely love to find out about something new, or old that I should be able to do and then spend days and weeks researching how I can execute a single task. I won’t say flawlessly, because I don’t think that is what matters. What matters is the thrill of the accomplishment and the achievement.

Which brings me to film and eclipses. This isn’t my first foray into photographing an eclipse on film, but it is my first attempt to photograph a lunar eclipse. Arguably, the lunar eclipse is much easier to prepare for since the moon moves through its phases regularly and you can practice many times in advance of the event. Additionally, lunar eclipses, to some capacity, seem to happen far more often than solar eclipses.

For me, there is something magical about creating a physical memory of a specific time and place in our history. Once this process is all said and done, I can hold the negative of the moon. I can use that negative to create and image. That negative can even be used to create a cyanotype of the event using the light of the moon to develop the cyanotype. It is all a little magical.

So, when even is the next lunar eclipse? As I write this, the next lunar eclipse is the night of March 13 – March 14, 2025. Where I am located, the eclipse starts at 10:57PM, and runs through 5:00AM. However, if you’re more interested in when the moon is in partial and full eclipse, for me that will be 12:09AM to 3:47AM on March 14, 2025. That’s really what I’m looking for.

If you want to find the details about the upcoming eclipse, or other eclipses in your area, I cannot recommend TimeandDate.com enough. It gives you countdowns to upcoming eclipses as well as details and animations/previews of what the eclipse will look like in your area.

So, to prepare for the eclipse, I needed to practice taking photos with the film and equipment I plan to use to shoot the eclipse. For me, I’ll be using the following equipment:

• Ricoh XR-7
• Tamron SP 500mm f8 BBAR – Mirror Lens
• Tamron 2x Teleconverter
• Gitzo #3 Tripod
• Cable Release
• Kodak Tri-X 400 (24 exposures)

Using all of the above equipment, I went out on the last full moon and I practiced. I also used a Tamron 28-200mm f3.8 71A lens with the teleconverter to see if I liked the size of the moon using it because the extra two stops would help me take faster photos. Practicing meant setting up my equipment and taking planned shots. These shots would allow me to develop the film and see what speed best suits the lighting of the full moon best. At least for me with my XR-7, it is hard to read the meter at night so practicing made a big difference. Here are the test shots, along with the settings for each:

Tamron 500mm + 2x Test Shots

Speed/f-Stop	Image
1/8 – f16
1/4 – f16
1/2 – f16
1 – f16
2 – f16

Tamron 28-200mm + 2x Test Shots

Speed/f-Stop	Image
1/8 – f??
1/4 – f??
1/2 – f??
1 – f??
2 – f??

A note on the 28-200 Lens

For whatever reason, I have been having trouble getting my 2 Teleconverter to mesh correctly when setting it up with the lens. For that reason, I cannot reliably get the f-stop to be what I think it is. The 500mm produces a larger image and has a fixed f-stop so it takes a lot of the guess work out.

All of the images were developed, scanned, and processed exactly the same. This allows me to have a consistent comparison. For me, the clear winner is the 500mm at 1/8 second, for the full moon. The full moon is the important bit as the moon is emitting the most light when full so as the eclipse comes and goes, I will need to take longer exposures to compensate. Furthermore, I’ll plan to bracket my shots in order to be able to select a best shot.

My planned shot list is as follows:

Exposure #	Time	Shutter Speed
1	12:09 AM – 1	1/8 sec.
2	12:22 AM – 1	1/8 sec.
3	12:22 AM – 2	1/4 sec.
4	12:35 AM – 1	1/8 sec.
5	12:35 AM – 2	1/4 sec.
6	12:48 AM – 1	1/4 sec.
7	12:48 AM – 2	1/2 sec.
8	1:01 AM – 1	1/4 sec.
9	1:01 AM – 2	1/2 sec.
10	1:14 AM – 1	1/2 sec.
11	1:14 AM – 2	1 sec.
BREAK	1:26 AM	Full Eclipse Begins
12	1:58 AM – 1	1/2 sec.
13	1:58 AM – 2	1 sec.
BREAK	2:31 AM	Full Eclipse Ends
14	2:42 AM – 1	1 sec.
15	2:42 AM – 2	1/2 sec.
16	2:55 AM – 1	1/2 sec.
17	2:55 AM – 2	1/4 sec.
18	3:08 AM – 1	1/2 sec.
19	3:08 AM – 2	1/4 sec.
20	3:21 AM – 1	1/4 sec.
21	3:21 AM – 2	1/8 sec.
22	3:34 AM – 1	1/4 sec.
23	3:34 AM – 2	1/8 sec.
24	3:47 AM – 1	1/8 sec.

I have evenly spaced my photos at roughly 13 minutes between shots, and working around the “full eclipse time” so I don’t have more than one set of photos of a dark sky. As the moon increases in coverage, I progressively alter my bracketed shots to let the emulsion absorb more light. Longer exposures can lead to blurry images though, and depending on your setup you might start seeing blurs due to the rotation of the Earth. So, I’m mostly guessing on my shutter speeds and keeping them on the faster side in the hopes of avoiding a blurry, moving moon. Hopefully these guesses pay off come the big…er…night. It would have been better if I spent a month shooting the moon through its phases to test exposures, but I the month I was ready was plagued with a lot of cloudy nights.

Speaking of clouds, my last point is the weather. No amount of planning can guarantee that you’ll be able to see the eclipse when it arrives. At the moment, the forecast is predicting rain for during the eclipse which means I’ll be back in bed early. Hopefully the weather is wrong, as it tends to be that far in advance, but I won’t know until I look out my window that night.

Let me know what your plans are for the lunar eclipse! Also, let me know if you weren’t aware it was coming up and now you’re at least a little excited for it.